


i want you to know

by birlcholtz (justwhatialwayswanted)



Series: Zimbits Airport AU [5]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: I'm making this up as I go along, M/M, Nobody knows, Nursey Has Friends, Pining, Rated T for language, What Is Their Relationship, but we love him anyway, canon-compliant alcohol use, dex is a salty little shit, discussion of various floral scents, featuring dex's constant inner monologue of screaming, finally i have an excuse to write the frogs into every single scene, is it mutual..... or is it not...... who knows......, lots of frustration all around, they're all bffs fight me, this is a lot longer than i originally planned it to be, this is set after and then i met you but before come home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-10-02 02:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 28,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10207487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/birlcholtz
Summary: People seem to come to the Haus like moths to a flame. In this case, the flame is mostly Nursey. Nursey’s crowd of friends gets bigger by the day and somehow, they all seem to know Dex. Or know of him, at least.Dex would kill to know what Nursey says about him.In which two not-quite-frogs-anymore share rooms, coffee, and (maybe?) feelings. They don't know where they're going yet, but they'll get there when they get there, as long as nobody gets killed on the way.(Context, if u don't want to read the entire series: Jack never went to Samwell, he and Bitty met towards the end of Bitty's senior year and are now dating. Half the NHL is out of the closet b/c of Jack. Aaand that's p much it)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> o shit!!!!! the first chapter is up!!!!!!!!!  
> (i #struggled when writing the summary tbqh)

Ever since Ransom, Holster, and Lardo graduated, the Haus has hosted far fewer parties. 

No, that’s not true.

They’ve hosted quite a lot of parties. It’s just that the style of entertainment is  _ quite _ different from anything those three particular alums would suggest. (Shitty, Dex thinks, would appreciate them despite their not being kegsters.) People seem to come to the Haus like moths to a flame.

In this case, the flame is mostly Nursey.

They’ve had unofficial poetry slams in the living room. People sitting in a circle and singing songs Dex couldn’t name to save his life in the Reading Room. Curled up in a giant tangle of people watching some horse sport on the couch (all Dex can say for sure is that it is  _ definitively _ not polo, they were dressed far too showily for that, and besides, it seemed to not be a team sport). Nursey’s crowd of friends gets bigger by the day (aided quite a bit by Chowder, who’s taken on Ransom’s role of being friends on Facebook with every current Samwell student and then some) and somehow, they all seem to know Dex. Or know of him, at least.

Not in the ‘we’re-old-friends-and-you-don’t-remember-me-for-some-reason’ way, in the “Oh, you must be  _ Dex” _ way that every single one of them greets him when they walk into the Haus for the first time. In that ubiquitous tone of realization and importance that tells Dex that  _ someone _ (and by ‘someone’ he means Derek Malik Nurse) has been talking about him quite a bit.

Dex would kill to know what Nursey says about him.

And it doesn’t help that every time some new person sees him in the Haus and says, “Oh, you must be  _ Dex,” _ Bitty and Chowder, if they’re in the room, either stifle a laugh or utterly fail at stifling it.

Clearly they know  _ exactly _ why Nursey tells so many people about him. Tango does too— he hasn’t asked a single question about it. And who knows about Whiskey, but going by the trend Dex would say Whiskey knows too. He’s just better about not making it  _ utterly fucking obvious _ that he does.

Sometimes Dex wishes he could just walk up to Whiskey and say, “Teach me your ways. How do you have such a good poker face?  _ How?” _ because Whiskey is also the reigning poker champion on the team and nobody knows how or why. (He’s somehow absolute shit at every other card game. Even Go Fish.) Dex would make good use of that poker face. He just doesn’t want to explain to Whiskey why he wants it.

And why does he want it?

Because every time someone with flowers embroidered on their flannel shirt or ink stains on their hands says “Oh, you must be  _ Dex,” _ Dex feels that tiny spark of hope that maybe, when Nursey talks to his friends about him, he  _ isn’t _ complaining.

It’s a slim chance, though. Try as he might to minimize outright antagonizing, they can’t seem to agree on anything. It’s gotten worse since they started sharing a room— Nursey wants the window open, Dex wants it shut. Nursey can’t write with the sound of Dex typing in his ears. Dex can’t code when Nursey paces around the room. Dex would like to go to sleep before midnight, thank you very much. Nursey wants to be able to sleep in past eight in the morning. Living in each others’ pockets just makes everything more difficult— Dex has no idea how Ransom and Holster managed it for so long. 

Then again, Ransom and Holster are like two peas in a pod. Two halves of a whole. Practically soulmates, if such a thing existed. Whereas Dex and Nursey are more like apples and oranges, or something like that. Dex is running out of overused metaphors and he’s not the sort of person who enjoys trying to come up with more. Nursey is.

Today is another one of their Reading Room singalongs. Dex wouldn’t be surprised to go out there and find that they’d built a campfire on the roof and were roasting marshmallows as they sang along to some acoustic version of a ‘70s hit. Of course, he’d make them put it out— no matter how good an idea it might seem at the time, building a fire on the roof of the Haus is  _ not _ a good way to prolong its lifespan— but it seems like the sort of thing that they would do.

He should probably check later. Right now, though, he’s comfortable and he doesn’t want to get up. He has a mug of coffee and some cookies (Nursey and his friends had taken the rest— Dex had barely managed to snatch enough that he could have a snack while he did his homework, although from the flurry of sound coming from the kitchen, Bitty is making more), and he’s achieved the most comfortable position of sitting on the couch with his laptop and it’s his relaxing time, okay? He’s been falling down the YouTube rabbit hole for about half an hour now and there are many more videos to go.

Dex is in the middle of watching some guy play Gershwin backwards on a trombone when all of Nursey’s friends, trailed by Nursey himself, come down the stairs. They seem to be getting ready to leave; they’re all putting on their shoes and jackets, and a  _ good fifty percent of them _ have said “Bye, Dex!” as they walk past him.

“They  _ can’t _ all have coincidentally decided to do that,” Dex says when the door closes behind the last person.

“They didn’t,” Nursey replies, already on his way back up the stairs. “‘Night.”

“Wait, what— Nursey?” Nursey has practically vanished up to the second floor. “ _Nurse._ _What is that supposed to mean?”_

Nursey doesn’t respond, and when Dex checks the time on his laptop, he realizes he should probably go to bed too.

He briefly entertains the thought of further interrogating Nursey (how  _ dare _ he be so cryptic and then just walk away) once he gets back up to the attic, but dismisses it. Nursey is the king of tuning things out and Dex would probably just wind up talking his own ear off as Nursey fell asleep.

Dex sighs, tucks his laptop under his arm, and heads up the stairs, avoiding the squeaky step that he probably won’t have a chance to fix until next Saturday. If he’s lucky, Nursey will be out of the bathroom by the time he gets there and he’ll fall asleep before he has a chance to judge Dex about the number of times he comes up with excuses to wash his hands with this hand soap that Chowder got him from Bath and Body Works. It’s jasmine and orange scented and is quite possibly one of Dex’s favorite smells on this earth.

(Nursey’s new shampoo is jasmine scented. Dex is pretty sure this is a coincidence, as Nursey’s shampoo is always some sort of floral. Last time, it was rose— before that, lavender. Throughout the whole year that they’ve been sharing the attic, Dex hasn’t noticed Nursey buy the same kind twice. It’s become a bit of a game for him: try and figure out whether Nursey’s changed his shampoo, and to what, without going to look in the bathroom. He’d gotten lavender, but not rose, which in hindsight had surprised Dex as he’s not even a big fan of lavender.)

“You’re irritated, aren’t you,” Nursey says when Dex gets into the attic. He’s changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt and he’s put on his fuzzy socks, which means he’s planning to go to bed soon, but right now Nursey is sitting cross-legged on the floor using his desk chair as a table.  _ Why. _

“A bit,” Dex says. “Why?”

“Oh, you know. If I don’t annoy you occasionally I feel like we’re not really friends anymore. Probably established a dangerous precedent freshman year, but what can you do?”

Dex rolls his eyes, because what else can you say to  _ that, _ and heads into the bathroom. He can hear Nursey flop onto his bed (when they’d set up two twin beds instead of Ransom and Holster’s bunk beds, Nursey had immediately claimed the one by the window.  _ Fine, _ Dex had responded.  _ Get woken up by sun shining directly in your eyes every morning. _ So far, it’s worked out, though) as Dex gets out his toothbrush.

 

When Dex reemerges, Nursey’s fallen asleep on top of the covers on his bed, with the side of his face resting on an open notebook instead of his pillow. That must hurt. At least it’s not a spiral notebook. He’s got an uncapped pen in his hand, too— one of the ones that Nursey treasures like it’s a family heirloom. He makes an event out of ordering ink refills, and he would  _ not _ appreciate it drying up if he fell asleep with it uncapped.

Dex sighs (he seems to have been doing that a lot lately) and crosses over to Nursey’s bed. “Hey, Nursey?”

“Mmghmfghfmmmgm?”

“Wake up, your fancy pen is uncapped and you fell asleep on your notebook and you’re sleeping  _ on top  _ of your covers.”

“Oh.” Nursey pushes himself up into a vaguely more alert position (he makes it look elegant, almost like a yoga pose) and opens his eyes, observing first the notebook lying flat on the pillow, then the pen he’s still clutching. “Thanks.”

Dex nods. “You’re welcome. You should try to sleep earlier.”

“Probably.”

Then, as Nursey locates the pen cap and bookmarks his page and puts his stuff back on his desk, Dex falls into his own bed and pulls the covers up to his forehead. At least he had the self-control not to read what Nursey had written.

“Thanks,” Nursey says again from across the room. Judging by the lack of footsteps, he’s done putting his notebook and pen away. “My pen definitely would’ve dried up by morning.”

Dex shrugs, although it’s dark enough in the room that Nursey probably can’t see it, especially not with him under the covers, and says, “Yeah, well, none of us want to see you upset, Nurse.”

Fuck. That was  _ far _ too sappy. Why did he even— never mind.

Nursey laughs then, a low chuckle that rumbles in his chest. “Sure. ‘Night.”

“‘Night.”


	2. Chapter 2

In a stunning departure from tradition, Nursey wakes up first.

Dex knows this, because normally when he wakes up, it’s because of his alarm. Unless someone’s gone through his phone and changed it, his alarm is  _ not _ the sound of Nursey slamming into a desk and whisper-shouting  _ “Fuck.” _

“Go back to sleep,” Dex says without opening his eyes, burrowing back into his covers. “‘S too early.”

“It’s seven AM,” Nursey says.

“Isn’t that, like, your bedtime?”

“I had an idea,” he replies. “Had to write it down before I forgot it. That happens. And then I crashed into the table.”

“Nice going.”

“Thanks. Go back to sleep, you’ve still got some time before your alarm goes off.”

Dex falls asleep to the rhythm of Nursey scratching out words on a piece of paper. He puts his force into how he writes, Dex thinks— says ‘chill’ in people’s faces and turns around and puts enough pressure in his pen to create hills and valleys in the paper, ravines of long words and craters on the dots of i’s and j’s. That’s probably why he buys such expensive paper— his pen would tear right through the cheap spiral notebooks Dex and pretty much everyone else in the Haus buys. Nursey doesn’t write words, he embosses them into the page. Dex is surprised that he’s never snapped off or bent the tip of a pen.

 

It’s some time before Dex’s alarm goes off— an hour, to be precise. He’s dozed a bit, but he hasn’t fallen asleep, so getting up only elicits a token protest from his body. Nursey turns off his alarm before he gets there, though. (His phone is on top of his desk, so he has to physically get up to turn it off and can maybe wake up a bit more on the way.) Since Nursey is still awake. Because he fell asleep with his face pressed into his notebook, and then he woke up at seven AM of his own volition, and now he’s still awake despite all those times he’s complained about Dex waking up at eight when they don’t have morning practice.

“Your sleep schedule is more fucked up than Bitty,” Dex says in lieu of ‘good morning.’

“Bitty doesn’t sleep,” Nursey replies absently, tapping his pen on the desk while he stares at the page in front of him.

“I thought you said you just had to write something down before you forgot it.”

“Inspiration strikes when it feels like it, Poindexter.” Nursey writes down a few more words, then adds a period at the end with the same deliberateness that Dex usually only sees from people hitting ‘submit’ on an important assignment. At some point, he must have gotten up to get a jacket, because that’s what he’s wearing. Sweatpants and a t-shirt and his team jacket. And fuzzy socks that don’t match— one is plain yellow and the other is striped pink and red. The other yellow fuzzy sock has been missing for a while, but as far as Dex knows, Nursey still owns both pink and red socks, and yet he chooses to mismatch them.

Well. Far be it from Dex to judge his roommate’s idiosyncrasies. Even though he usually does that all the time. He’s feeling charitable today.

That charitable feeling lasts exactly up until his mug slips out of his fingers in the kitchen and lands in the sink— it doesn’t shatter, but the rim gets chipped, and all of the coffee spills out, creating a small puddle around the mug.

“At least it was in the sink,” Chowder says from where he’s waiting for his bagel to finish toasting. “So you don’t have to clean up.”

“Yeah, but I  _ just _ got the right ratios of milk and sugar in there.”

“If you did it once, you can do it again.” Chowder gets the milk back out of the fridge, but then the toaster pops and he turns to attend to his bagel. He always puts cream cheese  _ and _ butter on,  _ and _ the bagel already has cheddar on it. It’s disgusting, but Chowder refuses to listen to reason.

Dex sighs and focuses on pouring the right amount of milk into the mug, trying to remember exactly how light the coffee had been before. Sugar will be more of a struggle, because he used the spoon that he used for sugar to stir his coffee and now it’s sticky. He puts his own bagel (whole wheat and intended to be topped with cream cheese and  _ only _ cream cheese, thank you very much) in the toaster and no sooner has he sat down with his new mug of coffee to wait for it to finish that Nursey stumbles into the kitchen himself, still with mismatched socks and in his pajamas.

“There’s some coffee left,” Chowder says, finishing the first half of his bagel and taking a moment to drink some of his tea before starting on the second half. “You’re up early.”

“He was up before me,” Dex says. Nursey makes some sort of gesture that’s probably meant to be affirmative— it  _ looks _ like he nods, but it’s accompanied by some vague hand gestures that instill some doubt in Dex that Nursey didn’t actually fall asleep and sleepwalk down the stairs. “He was quite alert, too, but then once I left the real Nursey reappeared and vanquished the imposter.” The toaster dings just then, so Dex gets up to grab it, carefully pushing his chair in first. Whenever Nursey is around and not a hundred percent alert, it’s always better to remove as many obstacles as possible.

“The imposter made some progress on a poem I want to get critiqued in my study group,” Nursey says, dumping some sugar into his coffee and giving it a perfunctory stir before gulping some down.

Dex drinks some of his own coffee, carefully avoiding the chip in the rim, and wonders if Nursey even realizes that coffee tastes better with the sugar evenly distributed.

“I didn’t realize you had a study group,” Chowder says.

Nursey laughs a little. “It’s not official or anything, some of us just decided that we need to get more workshopping done outside of class.”

“Are those the people who come over here a lot?” Dex asks.

“Yeah. They all live in dorms. Not great for gathering.”

And Dex nods, because he understands that. He hasn’t actually met up with his friends from class frequently enough for them to have picked out the best spot for ‘gathering,’ but there’s always some sort of debate about who has a place that can fit them all. None of them live in a frat house either, and most of them have singles because they’re scholarship students, and they don’t hang out much because there’s work to be done and they can always just message each other— okay, so Dex doesn’t have the most social friends, but he’s not the most social person himself, so it works out. He can’t imagine having people over practically every other night like Nursey does.  _ Don’t they have homework? _

Chowder changes the subject to a project in one of his classes that’s due while they’re on a roadie, bemoaning that he’ll be lucky if he even remembers to submit it at all.

“Just submit it before we leave,” Dex says.

Chowder and Nursey look at him in shock.

“That’s, like,  _ two days _ before it’s due, though,” Chowder protests.

“You have time to finish it.”

“I can’t just...  _ submit _ things more than six hours before they’re due!”

“You finished your capstone essay last year a week early, didn’t you?”

Chowder waves that off. “That doesn’t mean I turned it  _ in _ a week early. I waited until three hours and twenty-one minutes before it was due.”

“Why?”

“Well, what if I wanted to change something?”

“He’s got a point,” Nursey says. He seems more awake now, and he checks his phone as he continues. “ _ Especially _ if it’s writing. I always wind up changing my stuff at the last minute.”

“I just submit them whenever they’re done,” Dex says. “I’ve never improved a project by staring at it once it’s done and overthinking.”

“That’s a special talent,” Nursey says as he claps Dex on the shoulder on his way to the door. “You’re the first person I’ve met who does that.”

“Haha, yeah, I guess so.” Dex opens his mouth to say something else, he doesn’t know what, but by the time he does, Nursey has already left, half-drunk coffee abandoned on the counter.

“He didn’t eat anything,” Dex says, staring at the coffee mug.

“That’s weird,” Chowder agrees.

 

The group chat entitled ‘fuddy duddy study buddies’ is blowing up.

Nursey always silences his phone when he’s writing, so he hadn’t noticed until he was in the kitchen that day, opened his phone to see the hundreds of  _ ‘dereeeeeek why did you vanish’ _ and  _ ‘he probably went to sleep’ _ and  _ ‘OR MAYBE HE DIDN’T... DUN DUN DUN’ _ and all the speculation that followed about why, exactly, Nursey had vanished from the group chat last night.

He types out a quick message:  _ yo, i fell asleep. still on the planet, was not drugged, was not kidnapped to serve the royal army of an alien. _

The first response he receives after that is  _ ‘booooooooo, you ruined all the fun.’ _ And then:  _ ‘maybe the aliens took his phone and are texting us right now so that we don’t go looking for him.’ _

Nursey resigns himself to the fact that they probably won’t accept his boring response and continues on his way to the pond, where they’re meeting up this morning; they’ve decided both that it’s time for a change of scenery and that they’ve taken over the Haus enough times recently, and maybe it’s time to give Nursey’s teammates a break.

When Dex texts him  _ ‘dude you didn’t even eat anything, if you faint today it’s your fault’ _ , Nursey just smiles, replies  _ ‘anyone would swoon at the brilliance of that poem i was working on, not my fault if i pass out while im reading it’ _ , and continues on his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wOW it's nursey's pov!!!  
> actually idk how much i'll write in his pov. partially because i kind of gravitate towards writing dex bc i feel like i write him better, and partially because i don't want to have to name all of nursey's friends and dex doesn't know any of them so that's the easy solution lmao  
> idk when the next chapter will be up, hopefully soon! but probably not as soon as this one was posted because i already had like half of this one written when i posted the first chapter


	3. Chapter 3

Dex usually doesn’t text in class.

That is to say, he hardly even checks his phone, which doesn’t allow  for much texting. That seems like a huge feat of self-restraint, but it’s really just fear of failure, to be  _ quite _ honest. The quality of his notes can either boost or destroy his grade, so he does his best to pay attention— the only time he doesn’t, really, is if he has to work on something else. So, he usually doesn’t text in class. The exception is if he gets a text from one of his friends— group chats, he ignores, but if someone sends a message specifically to him, he’ll check it.

Such as this message from Nursey:  _ ‘yo, u may have been right abt the whole not eating thing’ _

 

**Dex:** i fucking told you

**Nursey:** chill i didn’t faint or anything

**Nursey:** just almost collapsed

**Dex:** well that’s progress isn’t it

**Nursey:** i dont fall over from standing still

**Dex:** yes u do

**Nursey:** no i dont

**Dex:** are we talking about the same person

**Nursey:** pft

**Nursey:** so

**Nursey:** back to the original topic

**Nursey:** wanna meet up at annie’s once ur class is over

**Dex:** sure

 

Dex remembers that Nursey was supposed to be hanging out with his ‘study group’ for the whole morning, but decides not to question it. It’s entirely possible that Annie’s is too mainstream for them. Who is he to decode the myriad reasons why they might not want to come?

 

**Dex:** i gtg im in class

**Nursey:** aw u stopped taking notes for me? im flattered

**Dex:** well i thought it might have been something even remotely serious

**Nursey:** it WAS

**Nursey:** i need a maple walnut scone asap

**Nursey:** preferably accompanied by a macchiato

**Dex:** you just? had coffee? this morning?

**Nursey:** STILL. macchiato.

**Dex:** half-caf sugarfree with an extra pump of caramel and almond milk right?

**Nursey:** ur exaggerating

**Nursey:** ive never ordered something half caf in my life

**Dex:** no you just order it full caf and then drink half of it

**Nursey:** shhhhhhh

**Nursey:** it’s too early for this incessant chirping

**Dex:** it’s 10:18 am

**Nursey:** exactly

**Dex:** sure

**Dex:** ttyl

**Nursey:** see u soon

 

Dex’s leg bounces for the rest of class. It’s not that he’s nervous to see Nursey— they live with each other, if Dex was nervous every time he was going to interact with Nursey he would be pretty much dead from nervousness by now. Which he’s not, at least not that he knows of. It’s more that he doesn’t see Nursey much outside of practices and the Haus, and when he does, it’s usually both unintentional and more of a bumping into each other between classes thing. They don’t really  _ hang out _ much, and they  _ certainly _ don’t plan it first. He has to wonder why the sudden change.

He hurries out when the class is over; Nursey’s got a head start on him, and Dex doesn’t want to make him wait too long.

Funnily enough, he makes it across campus in record time. Dex  _ does _ slow down before he gets in sight of Annie’s, though. He stops speedwalking and pauses for a moment to breathe in the hope that that’ll get his flush under control, because he can  _ feel _ how red his face is.

Fuck blood vessels. And pale skin. And genetics that result in those things, and also in an inability to blush in a localized manner. When Dex’s face is red, his face is  _ red. _ No subtle ‘pink cheeks’ bullshit. His face is bright red. It stands out horribly against his neck, which is just as pale as ever. Genetics are an awful thing.

After a few slow breaths, Dex touches his face— his hands are cold, even though it’s not that cold out (because on top of all those other things, of course he had to get poor circulation too), and his face is warm, but that’ll have to do for now. If he stands there much longer, it’ll undo all the progress he made by speedwalking over.

So he starts walking again, sedately this time, and it’s only a minute or so before he sees Annie’s and its windows that are decorated with flowers to celebrate the start of May.

The line isn’t that bad, and when he walks in, Nursey waves at him from a table in the corner. He already has a mug and he’s thumbing his way through a paperback— it’s probably  _ Their Eyes Were Watching God, _ Nursey just started rereading it— and he has a maple walnut scone that he’s barely touched yet, so he probably hasn’t been waiting long. Either that, or he’s so engrossed in the book that he’s forgotten to eat the scone, in which case it doesn’t matter how long he’s been waiting because he will definitely not have been keeping track of how long it’s been since he got there. In the time that it takes Dex to notice all of that, he’s already moved to only being second in line, so Dex takes the opportunity to inspect the pastries they have left before he orders. He settles on a cream currant scone and a decaf coffee with plenty of room for cream— he does  _ not _ need more caffeine, thank you very much.

“How was class?” Nursey asks when Dex sits down.

“Fine,” he replies. “I couldn’t take notes on a big section of the lecture for  _ some reason—” _ Nursey’s lips twitch and he lifts his mug up to his face— “but Chowder took it last semester so I can just ask him for his. How was your study group thing? Did you get that poem checked out?”

Nursey shrugs. “Yeah, as much as I have done of it. It’s gonna be a long one, I think. I’m already twenty lines in and I have some more connections that I want to fit in. Fortunately I’m not doing it for a class so there’s no deadline.”

“Is it part of your... saga?” Nursey’s been working on some sort of cyclical volume of poetry for about a year and a half. Dex doesn’t understand how he keeps finding new ways to wedge poems in— if it’s a cycle, shouldn’t it have a set number of ideas? — but somehow Nursey keeps managing it.

“It’s not a  _ saga.” _

“What is it, then?”

“I don’t know. Not a saga, though. That makes it sound like some eighteen-book-long fantasy series by some old white guy from the eighties.”

“Okay, fine. Is it part of your poem cycle thing?”

Nursey rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Yes, it’s part of my  _ poem cycle thing.” _

Dex shrugs. “Look, when you have a better name for it, you let me know.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

Nursey says, “I think it might be the last one I add, actually.”

“How’d you wind up deciding that?”

“I just have nothing else to add. All I can do is restate things I already said. Better just to spend more time tweaking the poems that I do have, rather than try to fit in more stuff.”

“I have no idea what you’re going to do with yourself once you finish that,” Dex says.

“Probably start another one.” Nursey contemplates that for a moment before shaking his head. “I take that back. It depends how I feel once I finish it. And whether I think I can finish it before graduation.”

“Why does it have to be then?”

“I don’t want that hanging over me when I decide what I’m  _ actually _ going to do with my degree, because then I’ll have to finish it, and then I’ll feel like I have to stick with writing until retirement. And that’s fine, I love writing, but honestly I prefer it when there are no deadlines attached, and you can’t avoid deadlines unless you want to self-publish, so it’s pretty futile. That’s why I don’t take any of the creative writing classes here. Assignments would corrupt writing for me.”

“You haven’t taken any of the creative writing classes?” Dex asks, somewhat incredulously, because even  _ he’s _ taken a creative writing class at Samwell. (He had to get some humanities in there  _ somewhere _ to graduate, and it may as well have been something useful for his game design minor— even though he only took the fiction writing course last semester, his professor this semester has already complimented him multiple times on the quality of his narratives.)

“No,” Nursey says, and then he laughs, quietly but definitely still a laugh, not a chuckle or a giggle or any of those things. “Besides, most of them are for prose, anyway.”

“That seems pretty irrelevant,” Dex agrees. He’s finished his scone. “You would have hated the TA in my creative writing class, he was a dick about poetry. I thought he would at least make an exception for, like, the  _ Iliad, _ but no. Asshole all the way.”

“How did you discover he hated the  _ Iliad?” _

“I asked.” Nursey snorts and hastily takes another drink from his mug. “I also asked about  _ Paradise Lost. _ I don’t remember exactly what he said about it, but I do remember that his objection to the  _ Iliad _ was that it was ‘gratuitous violence disguised as something with meaning,’ and I remember  _ that _ because I then proceeded to write an eighteen-page paper about the purpose of violence in Homeric works and make him read it under the pretense that it was an extra-credit project for a literary analysis class that I wanted help on.” Which was not as impressive a feat as Dex is making it sound, since he quoted a  _ lot _ of scholarly papers on the subject. Not to mention all of the quotes from the actual text. At least a few pages’ worth of quotation.

“So what I’m hearing is that there’s a grad student who probably has a grudge against you?”

“Most likely.”

“Excellent. And for such a noble cause, too.”

Dex shrugs. “The  _ Iliad _ is the only book that I both read voluntarily and also had to read for a class. I’ve spent a lot of time picking it apart, so writing that essay was a pretty straightforward process.”

“Also, your main motivation is spite, so you probably would’ve still written an essay if it had to be on  _ Paradise Lost.” _

“True.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is it a date? is it not a date? who even knows at this point? certainly not nursey and dex.  
> also: dex is minoring in game design. this particular headcanon is in my soul. i must have it.  
> honestly no idea when the next chapter will be up (i literally have rehearsal every day next week) but i know how i want to start it so... that's a beginning, at least?


	4. Chapter 4

“Do you have anywhere you need to be?” Nursey asks when they’ve been at Annie’s for forty-five minutes or so, only crumbs and trace amounts of coffee left to prove that they even bought anything.

“Technically, no,” Dex says.

Nursey raises his eyebrows. “But?”

“But I should probably get started on my project for Database Design,” he confesses.

“Oh, was that the class you were just in?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a couple weeks to finish it, but I don’t know how much work it’s going to be so I want to get started early.”

“We are  _ such _ different people,” Nursey says, and then he gets up, picking up both his mug and Dex’s to bus. “Back to the Haus?”

Dex stacks their plates and they take their respective dishes to the plastic bin where people drop them off. Fortunately, the people who’ve already been there have been practical, rather than creative, with the arrangement of the somewhat fragile dishes that are stacked inside. “Sure.” It’s as good a place as any to get homework done, if nobody’s trying to throw a kegster at the same time, and there’s a better chance of spontaneous baked goods than if they go to the library.

The walk back to the Haus is completed in comfortable silence; Dex is thinking less about his project and more about how he needs to call his mom tomorrow because it’s her birthday, and he should really make sure that he actually  _ did _ put a reminder in his calendar. Nursey doesn’t say anything either, but his face is relaxed as he stares straight ahead, and he  _ does _ manage to stay vertical for the entire walk back. There’s never a guarantee either way. Dex can’t even relegate it to something as simple as being distracted, because he’s seen Nursey navigate the exact same terrain both completely sober and drunk off his ass, and he fell less when he was intoxicated.

When they get back, Dex gets his laptop and textbook out of his backpack and flops down onto the floor of the living room. Nursey vanishes upstairs, but he returns a few minutes later with his own laptop, as well as the same notebook that he was writing in that morning, and a pen. He settles on the floor nearby.

Dex works on his project.

At some point, the front door opens and closes, and he hears Bitty’s feet tapping on the stairs up to his room. The shower runs— it does that much more reliably now. Nursey taps his pen on the edge of his laptop, and Dex himself is tapping on his keyboard. It’s the opposite of rhythmic, especially when all of it is happening at once, but it works somehow. It’s just the noise of the Haus.

The shower turns off and Nursey is done tapping his pen— now he types and sometimes he smiles to himself. He looks at his notebook occasionally, but he seems to be using it as a reference instead of copying it down. Bitty’s footsteps proceed back down the stairs and out the door. No baked goods, then. Oh well. He probably has class or somewhere else he needs to be. Nursey glances up too, when he hears the door shut— they make eye contact for a moment and Nursey shrugs before going back to his laptop— his nose crinkles as he reads through whatever he’s typed up. Nursey’s nose crinkles up when he’s focusing. He does the same thing during games, and when he’s trying to figure out if he has enough time to stop by the Haus and get his portable phone charger between class and practice. It happens a lot.

“I’m gonna make some tea, I’ve been staring at a screen for too long,” Nursey says abruptly, standing up. 

Dex shuts his laptop and does the same— he’s been staring into space for a couple minutes anyway. “Just remember to keep track of where the kettle is before you unplug it so you don’t knock it over with your elbow.”

“That has only happened—” Nursey stops to remember— “hang on, that has literally never happened to me.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” 

“There’s only a first time if it actually happens.”

“Who’s saying it won’t?”

“I am.”

“Five bucks says you’re wrong.”

“Five bucks says I’m right.”

“Deal.” Dex follows Nursey into the kitchen and sits on the table as Nursey goes through the incredibly laborious process of filling up the kettle and plugging it in. It only takes a few seconds before the kettle provides all the noise the room needs, and then some.

Dex goes over to the cupboard where they keep mugs— they’re all mismatched, since most of the team will just donate any mugs that they have that they don’t want. There are several chipped ones (some chipped before they arrived in the hockey team’s cabinet, some after), lots with logos or names on them from events that Dex doesn’t recognize, and one that’s just a really hideous one someone’s four-year-old nephew made for them at Petroglyph. (Dex thinks that was Holster’s, actually, because every time Holster wound up using it when he was still on the team, he would take a selfie with the mug and send it to his mother. The style would actually look pretty cool if it was done with more skill, and if the colors weren’t so ugly— the different glazes overlapped and mixed together on the mug, which created an interesting marbling effect that would have been  _ so _ much better if it wasn’t forest green and bright orange. As it is, the mug is a muddy, unappetizing color, with the occasional streak of orange or green, like speed stripes.) He gets that one for Nursey and a purple one that says ‘Bronsted Middle School’ on it for himself.

“Thanks,” Nursey says dryly as Dex plops the mug down on the counter in front of him.

“Earl Grey or peach?” is Dex’s response as he opens the drawer where they keep the tea. The number of different types has increased dramatically since both he and Nursey moved in— Nursey insists on having at least three different types of black tea (of which Dex could not tell the difference if his life depended on it), and one green, and Dex just likes tea. He’s responsible for all of the herbal teas in the drawer, but after trying a few of the blends Dex keeps the Haus stocked with, Nursey’s decided that he’s partial to peach tea, whenever he wants something without caffeine. (If Dex wants a caffeinated tea, he just reaches blindly into Nursey’s stash, but usually he goes for coffee instead.)

“English Breakfast,” Nursey says.

“Also known as Earl Grey,” Dex says to annoy him.

“You’re so obtuse.”

“I swear to you, if you gave these to me in a taste test, I probably wouldn’t even be able to tell they were different teas.”

“That’s because you hardly ever drink black tea so it all tastes the same to you. Like how people can’t tell the difference between red wines.”

“Nobody can tell the difference between red wines.”

“True.”

“You do realize you just sabotaged your own argument, right?” Dex asks while getting a teabag of English Breakfast for Nursey and a teabag of lemon hibiscus for himself.

“The beauty of my argument is that it’s strong enough to stand without its comparisons.”

Dex unceremoniously drops the teabag into Nursey’s mug. “Enjoy your Darjeeling.”

Nursey scoffs at him overdramatically, and then the water is boiling, so he unplugs the kettle, with one hand on it to keep it from tipping in case his elbow smacks into it. He pours his own tea (with Dex staying far away as he puts honey into his mug, just in case something unfortunate happens) and then sets the kettle down on the counter and says “That’s five bucks you owe me, Poindexter.”

“Fine, maybe you’ll knock it over next time,” Dex says as he carries over his own mug and pours in hot water.

“We’re not making another bet.”

“‘Kay.”

“That was so passive aggressive,” Nursey comments idly as he sips at his tea.

“That’s my specialty,” Dex agrees.

“How much did you get done?”

“Enough that I don’t need to freak out about getting it done later. It’s nowhere near done, of course, but I’ve done enough that finishing it should be fairly straightforward. You?”

“I haven’t been nearly that productive,” Nursey says. “I typed up what I’ve got from this morning, but I also took a lot of breaks to go on Etsy.”

“Did you order anything?”

“Nah, just looked at picture frames.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m trying to convince Lardo that she could sell so much on Etsy if she just made picture frames with her leftover scraps of wood. I need to compile a list of boring picture frames to show her so that she feels an urge to right this utter wrong. They’re so  _ boring, _ Dex. You could probably just slap some pieces of wood together crookedly and call it modern and people would buy it just for the variety.”

“Would  _ you _ buy it?”

“Hell yeah I would!”

“Even if you didn’t know the person making it?”

“Uh,  _ yeah.” _

“Maybe I should make some shitty picture frames to sell on Etsy,” Dex muses.

“You could even collaborate with Lardo. You put the frames together, she bathes them in glitter.”

“Ha. As much as I love and appreciate Lardo, I think I’m going to stick to coding for my career.”

“You do you. Just know that there’s an entire world of poorly made picture frames waiting for you! If you decide high tech isn’t for you, that is.”

“Even if I did, the chances that I’d suddenly lose any ability to make a picture frame well are low. Still, I’ll keep it in mind for retirement.”

“Mm. Lardo will be delighted.”

“You mean you will. Aren’t you the one trying to convince her to sell picture frames in the first place?”

“That’s beside the point.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is this?? a chapter without a single line break?????? what????????  
> ok so i'm planning to get a start on the next chapter this weekend but i probably won't have it up until like a week from now or so. still i finished this early so i decided to post it ahead of schedule!!!  
> also, y'all, this may turn out to be more slice-of-life-y than what i usually do? i mean it'll still have a plot n all that but not every chapter is gonna exclusively drive the plot. (*coughs* like this one)  
> aNYWAY. next chapter will feature more chirping, mostly of nursey and by his as-of-yet-unnamed group of indie hipster friends!!! yay!!!!!!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter is a lil shorter than usual, but i wrote it in literally 1 day and i just wanted to get it posted b4 my life returns to being consumed by rehearsal (this week is show week and after that im FREEEE)  
> anyway. after the show is over we shall return to a more regular update schedule!! :)  
> AND WHO IS THAT??? IS IT..... A NEW CHARACTER????

Dex and Foxtrot are always the ones who get to the dining hall first for dinner on Tuesdays, so they’re the ones in charge of investigating for in-demand food items and texting the rest of the team. Today, it’s pretty standard, but they do have beets at the salad bar, so Dex shoots Nursey a text on his way to the table, where Foxtrot has already obtained a plate stacked with fries and a bowl of Cheerios. The fries are for sharing. The Cheerios are not.

“So, it’s been almost a whole year rooming with Nursey,” Foxtrot says when Dex sits down across from her. “And neither of you is dead yet? Impressive, considering what I saw last year.”

“He’s a surprisingly decent roommate.” Dex grabs a few fries.

“I guess if you can get used to him on the ice, you can get used to sharing a room with him too, huh?” She’s already halfway done with her cereal.

“Yeah.”

Foxtrot looks a little smug for some reason. “Uh-huh. You’re definitely used to him.”

“I predicted the type of tea he would want after his last poetry slam, I’d say I am.”

“ _And_ you made it so it would be ready when he got back to the Haus.”

“Well, yeah.” Dex stuffs some fries in his mouth.

“Uh-huh.” She watches him expectantly, so Dex takes his time chewing and swallowing before he speaks.

“Are you going to say anything else?”

“Is there something you thought I would say?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“You’re channeling Lardo right now.”

“Mhm. It’s the best way to get the non-tadpoles to listen to me.”

“What am I listening to you about?”

“Nothing at the moment.”

“Okay.”

“But you will.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It is.” Foxtrot finishes her Cheerios. “I assume you already told Nursey about the beets?”

“Yeah.”

“‘Swawesome. He’ll be here soon then to hold the table.”

“Do you need to be somewhere?”

“The soft serve line is getting pretty long.” With that, Foxtrot gets up and takes her empty bowl and spoon with her to the dish dropoff before going to get into the soft serve line.

Dex eats some more fries, then he finishes them. Foxtrot is still in line when a bowl of beets plops down on the table and Nursey sits down next to him, fork at the ready.

“Did you actually get a salad?”

“This is a salad,” Nursey says before he digs in.

“It looks like a bowl of beets to me.”

“It’s a bowl of beets with balsamic vinegar and sunflower seeds,” he says once he’s done swallowing. “I think there’s also a grape in there.”

“A singular grape?”

“A singular grape.”

“How?”

“To be honest, I don’t really know. They’re not even near each other in the salad bar. But I’m pretty sure there’s a grape involved somehow.” Nursey shuffles the beets around in his bowl for a few seconds before locating a grape triumphantly. “Told you.”

“You’d better hope you don’t spill. I don’t think the washing machine can handle beet juice.”

Nursey looks at him in alarm, and that’s when Dex notices that there’s _already_ a stain on his sleeve. “I... may have dropped some beets earlier?”

“Well, I guess you could try putting it in the washing machine? But it might just turn your whole shirt pink.”

“Uh, I think you mean _salmon,”_ Nursey says in his best Ransom imitation, which honestly isn’t that good, but it’s been a running joke long enough that it doesn’t really have to be good.

“Coral.”

“Very light red.”

“Reddish white.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s the point. Careful, your bowl is about to slide off the table.”

“Fuck.” Nursey slowly slides his bowl away from the edge (and away from the danger zone of his gesturing arms). “They should put those gate things around the edge of the table. Like the ones they put on the edge of beds for little kids who have just moved out of their cribs.”

“I’m pretty sure even if they did have one of those, it wouldn’t stop your numerous and inventive ways of spilling.”

“It’s the bowl’s fault.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Hi, Nursey,” Foxtrot says as she sits back down with a frankly astonishing quantity of soft serve piled into a cup. She spots the stain on his sleeve and says, “Eating beets is certainly a dangerous pastime.”

“Thanks, Foxtrot,” Nursey says.

“You’re welcome. Be prepared, the rest of the team is going to descend on you soon.”

“Wicks won’t, he has to study for kinesthesiology,” Dex offers.

“Oh, wow, that makes everything so much better.”

 

In the end, Nursey’s sleeve actually goes relatively unnoticed. Wicks has dragged Ollie into helping him study, Bitty is texting Jack, the freshmen are watching Bitty and murmuring about something (probably dibs, considering that it’s getting close to graduation), Chowder is eating with Farmer and her team, Tango is absorbed in some sci-fi book, and all Whiskey did was pointedly raise his eyebrows when he sat down.

“Dude, are you just going to eat beets?”

“Are _you_ just going to keep getting up and getting another plate of fries?”

“Shut up. Potatoes are good for you.”

“So are beets.”

“You’re the one who didn’t have breakfast and texted me in the middle of class to see if I wanted to go to Annie’s.”

“At least I’m having something healthy.”

“Like I said, potatoes _are_ healthy. You can survive on just potatoes and milk.”

“That sounds like a disgusting way to live.”

“It sounds fucking delicious. Shut up.”

“You’d get bored.”

“No I wouldn’t.”

“Yes you would.”

“No I wouldn’t.”

“If you wouldn’t, then what’s stopping you from doing it?” Nursey wants to know.

“Pie. Also, my mother would kill me if I came home and suddenly only ate potatoes and milk.”

“Those are good reasons.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. But also, cobbler.”

“True.”

“Sweet potato pie,” Foxtrot says. She’s been done eating for a long while now, but she’s hanging out at the table for ‘amusement.’ Dex is pretty sure that’s her way of saying that she’s done with all her homework and has nothing better to do.

“Good point,” Dex says.

“But that still has pie crust,” Nursey says.

“Pie crust made out of potatoes?”

“If you want that, you can learn how to make it yourself, Dex,” Bitty calls without looking up from his phone.

“Yeah, I think going on a potatoes-and-milk diet is a bad idea,” Dex concludes.

“A supremely awful one,” Nursey confirms. “Plus, I think when they say ‘survive,’ they mean survive, not thrive.”

“Nice rhyme.”

“Thanks.”

 

Foxtrot, Chowder, and Bitty have been texting back and forth under the table (well, under the table for Foxtrot— she can see Chowder texting in plain sight a few tables over, and occasionally reading the contents of the texts aloud to the volleyball team, to their amusement) for about twenty minutes now. (Bitty’s also carrying on a conversation with Jack, which is providing a convenient alibi for him.) She’s mostly acquired the skill of texting without looking, as long as she looks down at first to check that everything is spaced normally.

 

 **Foxtrot:** they r so gone for each other

 **Bitty:** ikr

 **Foxtrot:** that was such a civil interaction

 **Chowder:** was it

 **Chowder:** was it really

 **Foxtrot:** well there was a lot of chirping but no violence

 **Chowder:** yeah thats civil

 **Foxtrot:** smriti told me that nursey ditched them to go to annies w dex

 **Bitty:** u have to introduce us to ur gf sometime foxtrot

 **Bitty:** ik uve only been dating for like 2 weeks but

 **Bitty:** we must be friends

 **Bitty:** if only so she can provide Insight into their study group

 **Bitty:** and how often nursey ditches

 **Foxtrot:** shes super busy rn w her novel but ill try to drag her away from her word processor

 **Bitty:** good

 **Chowder:** yeah

 **Chowder:** dex was complaining at me bc when nursey texted him in class he thought it was an emergency

 **Chowder:** so he replied

 **Chowder:** DEX TEXTED IN CLASS

 **Foxtrot:** ?!??!!??!

 **Bitty:** pARDON

 **Chowder:** ikr like how obvious can u be

 **Chowder:** v much apparently

 **Chowder:** like more so than u n jack bitty

 **Bitty:** hush

 **Chowder:** IT’S TRUE

 **Foxtrot:** u right my friend

 **Chowder:** see foxtrot thinks im right

 **Foxtrot:** honestly tho how long is it gonna take those 2 to figure themselves out

 **Chowder:** a really fuckin long time

 **Chowder:** just wait for the ust to explode

 **Bitty:** somehow i think we formed a pact to leave the room whenever they argue

 **Bitty:** its mildly uncomfortable otherwise?

 **Foxtrot:** ah so almost there

 **Bitty:** HOPEFULLY BEFORE I GRADUATE

 **Foxtrot:** #agree

 **Chowder:** i rlly thought them sharing a room wld make something happen sooner or later

 **Chowder:** but noooooo

 **Chowder:** they r so Oblivious

 **Foxtrot:** idek how u have been living w this since frog year

 **Chowder:** same!!!! honestly!!!!!!!

 **Bitty:** i think we just have 2 leave them alone in the haus more

 **Chowder:** hope so

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yupyupyup ford is here!! calling her foxtrot in this bc i figure why not right? i'm going to edit the earlier chapters to change mentions of the attic to lardo's room but that won't happen for a lil while  
> also, smriti is ford's girlfriend, they met thru nursey, its gr9  
> and ive decided ford eats cereal for dinner bc listen,, as a theater person,, the number of ppl who bring cereal to late rehearsals and eat it for dinner is astounding.. she's used to it now. also she eats fast af lmao  
> :)
> 
> edit april 25: hi y'all, i have a sinus infection so i won't update this week. i'll try to update next week but it may not happen, we'll see. hopefully ppl see this?? idk


	6. Chapter 6

“Maybe we can bleach it out,” Nursey says as they walk back to the house.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like the best thing to use for a localized spot. Just Google it, I’m sure there’s some other weirdass solution.”

“Probably.”

“Also, we? What implied I would be helping you get that stain out?”

“The unbreakable d-man bond?”

“While we’re on the topic of d-men, you could always ask Ransom, I bet Holster’s gotten a bunch of shit on his clothes.”

“The fact that you said to ask Ransom and not to ask Holster just proves my point.”

“I’m blazing my own path.”

“Without me? Rude.”

“I’m very rude,” Dex agrees.

“Nah, you just fake it so we’ll think you’re a tough dude. TM.”

“Did you just say TM out loud?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what else I expected.”

“It’s hard to verbally capitalize things.”

“I guess that’s true? I’ve never tried.”

“Because you’re a loser.”

“Eloquent.”

“Thanks.”

“In all seriousness, isn’t the point of capitalizing letters in text to communicate verbal emphasis? So shouldn’t it be easy?”

“I mean, yeah, but like, it’s adopted its own meaning now.”

 

Dex does not deign to help Nursey operate the washing machine once they get back to the Haus; he does his reading instead.

This proves to be a mistake.

“We’re going shopping,” Nursey declares, walking into his room an hour later, wearing a different shirt (it’s orange) and holding something behind his back.

“What, now?” Dex asks, marking his page. “And ‘we’?”

Nursey dramatically reveals the shirt he was hiding behind him and shakes it out. It’s, well... ‘faded salmon color’  _ is _ a good way to describe it, now that the stain has gone through the wash. “Yes, we. This is clearly the universe’s way of saying that you need to fulfill your d-man bond with me, Poindexter, since you didn’t help me with the stain.”

Dex is intrigued in spite of himself— he didn’t think that there was enough beet juice to really sizeably affect the color of the shirt. “How did you manage that?”

Nursey just shrugs.

 

So, they go shopping. They go on the bus to the nearest mall, the one that pretty much just caters to Samwell students, and Nursey finds an almost-identical white shirt (really, it’s not hard to find lightweight button-downs, especially since it’s almost summer). He tries it on, just to make sure it fits, and it does. The mall is full of students enjoying their Saturdays, so they don’t linger, and then they’re about to go back to the Haus when they pass by Teavana, and then they’re offering samples of tea, so of course they  _ have _ to stop. Because, like, free tea.

Nursey tries the berry one they’re offering, and then after one sip he turns to Dex and says, “We should go get froyo.”

“What brought that on?” Dex asks as he downs his tea. It’s not his fault that they put so little in the samples.

“Raspberry.”

“I mean, that’s a good enough reason for me.”

The froyo place is on the way back from the mall, so it’s simple enough to stop on the way back. Nursey, bowing to the influence of Teavana, gets raspberry and puts his usual toppings on: Reese’s, chopped walnuts, and some sprinkles. Dex opts for his usual order as well.

“Is red velvet your favorite flavor because you identify with it?” Nursey asks as they sit down.

“Shut up, Nurse.”

“Is it like cannibalism though?”

“No.”

“I’m just saying that it could be. Also, by the time you get through all of the toppings your froyo will be melted.”

That really only leaves one option for Dex. He looks Nursey dead in the eye and takes a spoonful of Nursey’s froyo. Walnuts are gross, but he stomachs them anyway, because it’s worth it.

Then Nursey’s eyes narrow and he takes a spoonful of Dex’s froyo,  _ with the spoon that he already dipped in his raspberry froyo. _ What the  _ fuck. _ Dex’s spoon was  _ clean _ when he stuck it into the raspberry, thank you very much.

He digs out the section of froyo that was defiled with raspberry and dumps it into Nursey’s bowl, then returns to eating his way through the various forms of chocolate toppings on his own. The froyo probably will be melted once he gets to that point, but if Nursey thinks that’s enough motivation for Dex to stop putting so many toppings on, he is sadly mistaken. 

Maybe he could go without the gummy bears, though?

Nah.

Nursey watches the red velvet melt into his bowl with an expression of grief on his face. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to tell them apart.”

“That’s what you get for putting raspberry in my red velvet in the first place,” Dex says.

“You have a vindictive soul.”

“And right now I feel vindicated.”

“It’s possible that the two are even connected.”

“Yeah, I think you could be right about that.”

“Thanks for your confidence.”

“You’re welcome.”

Just then, Nursey’s phone rings, the Darth Vader theme playing just loudly enough to be heard.

“Seriously?”

“That’s Foxtrot’s ringtone,” Nursey says. “She requested it.” He answers the phone, saying, “Hi, Foxtrot, I’m putting you on speaker. ‘Sup?”

“I’m dragging Smriti to the Haus so she eats food that doesn’t come from a Kraft box,” Foxtrot says. “Since Bitty is demanding that she meets the team. We’re gonna be there in like twenty minutes so be there because I have it on good authority that there will be peanut butter cookies and whatever’s left over of the strawberry rhubarb from last night.”

“We’re at the froyo place so it might be twenty-five since we’re not done yet,” Nursey says.

“Dex there too?” she asks.

“Yes,” Dex says.

“Good. Twenty minutes. Be there.”

“But I just told you it might be twenty-five.”

“Well, it’s your fault if you miss the cookies,” Ford says, and then she hangs up as Dex begins shoveling his froyo (which he’s finally gotten to, underneath the layers of toppings) into his mouth.

“If Ollie gets there before we do, we’re screwed,” Nursey says.

“Text Bitty and tell him to do his best to save some cookies,” Dex replies around a mouthful of yogurt. “Like hide them or something.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I have priorities,” Dex says after putting another spoonful of froyo in his mouth. He pretends to ignore Nursey’s facial expression, which is halfway between a grimace of disgust and an Anderson Cooper eyeroll. Which are pretty much the same thing, come to think of it. “If we’re not out of here in five minutes I’m dragging you.”

“You can try.”

“Like you aren’t just as focused about getting there before the food is gone.”

“Yeah, but I’m nearly done, so the chances of you finishing before me are close to none.” As if to prove his point, Nursey crams the last of his froyo into one bite (who’s the disgusting one, exactly?) and gets up to throw away his bowl and spoon.

“Showoff,” Dex mutters to himself as he does his best to eat as fast as possible without getting a brainfreeze. His competitiveness can only take him so far past the limits of human ability.

He  _ does _ finish his froyo before Nursey gets back to their table, though, which Dex counts as an accomplishment. 

Nursey just raises his eyebrows.

 

They’re there in twenty-one minutes, and they find Bitty, Wicks, Foxtrot, and someone who Dex assumes is Smriti in the kitchen finishing the strawberry rhubarb pie. The peanut butter cookies are cooling, which explains why there’s only one missing. (Foxtrot is truly terrifying. She drinks scalding coffee and inhales ice cream. Temperature is just a side note with her. Dex suspects the idea to give everyone leftover pie was to protect the cookies from Foxtrot. Or maybe the other way around, considering their temperature, but she’s proved pretty much immune so far somehow.)

“Hey, Smriti,” Nursey says to the remaining person, thus confirming Dex’s theory that this is Smriti. She’s about Bitty’s height, dressed casually in blue flannel and jeans and black hair tied in a ponytail.

“Hi,” she says. Then, to Dex, “I’m Smriti.”

“Dex,” he says, and they shake hands and everyone pretends not to notice Wicks taking a bite of pie from Bitty’s plate (he’s occupied moving the cookies from the wire rack to a plate).

“Dex is Nursey’s defense partner,” Tango says.

“Oh, I know,” she says. “Derek’s mentioned it.”

Come to think of it, Smriti is one of the people in Nursey’s study group/open mic night team who usually says bye to Dex on her way out. She’s also the one who’s usually holding the melodica.

“Otherwise it would be hard to explain why there was a guy sitting in the corner cursing at a PC every time they came to the Haus. I think people started asking me who you were once you built that six-foot-tall pillow fort.”

“A marvel of modern engineering,” Dex says.

“Indeed,” Smriti agrees.

“And not a single roll of duct tape,” Nursey says.

“I’d like to see you do better.”

“Unfortunately for you, my mysterious pillow-fort-building skills are just going to have to remain that way.”

“Until you try it anyway.”

“That’s true.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY i got this up. it's a little bit on the short side but i wanted to get it up so that we just barely scraped by having a month-long accidental hiatus. i'm a little more on top of things now and i'm not really sick so hopefully that points towards having one or two more updates this month-- i'll do my best to at least post one.  
> also thank you all SO MUCH for being super nice about how long it's been, y'all are incredible <3 <3


	7. Chapter 7

“So tell me, Dex,” Smriti says. The whole team has been around for an hour and a half now, enough that she’s been released from her duty to meet every single hockey player. Why she’s seeking Dex out now, he has no idea. It may have something to do with the plate of peanut butter cookies that he snagged and is shielding from the rest of the team by standing in the doorway to the kitchen and glaring at people who look like they might try to take one. “How exactly did you and Derek stop hating each other till your last breath? We’re all a little fuzzy on that, and whenever we ask him he just says some vague shit like ‘flowers that bloom in pavement are miraculous but no less real.’”

“Fuck if I know,” Dex says. “I’d just say it’s pretty hard to spend as much time together as we do and also hate each other all the time. As for how we started spending time together, I think that was a team conspiracy to avoid out-and-out homicide.”

“Sounds like it. Derek said Lardo made you sit together on bus rides.”

“That wasn’t so bad, actually.” Dex smiles a little at the memory of how his horror had gradually dissipated the longer they were in the bus. Nursey, thinking along the same lines that Dex had, brought his textbook for one of his classes and had taken notes until he fell asleep. Dex lasted longer, but he wound up falling asleep in the seat too, which resulted in a pretty awful crick in his neck when he woke up and saw Nursey, awake already and back to taking notes. “It was oddly peaceful. We just kind of did homework and left each other alone.”

“I guess that’s the best way for getting through a road trip no matter who you’re with.”

“Guess so. So how did you wind up meeting Foxtrot? I don’t think I was around when she told the rest of the team.” 

“Oh, we took Mandarin together. Once we figured out that we had a friend in common we kind of stuck together, although I guess we didn’t have that much else in common. After the awkward small talk phase, we just, you know, liked being around each other, so we kept it up after the class was over. I think we went on like eight coffee dates before either of us realized they were dates,” Smriti laughs. “It took my friend Lou literally asking me when I got a girlfriend before I put anything together.”

“That’s impressive,” Dex says, “but how could they be dates if neither of you knew that they were?”

Smriti shrugs. “Romantic is romantic even if you don’t know it yet. I mean, the whole point of going on dates is to hang out with someone you like being around and getting to know them better. If you don’t realize that you’re doing it romantically instead of platonically does that make it platonic? How can you really tell if you haven’t consciously already dismissed the possibility of romantic attraction?”

“I can see why you and Nursey are friends.”

“I’ll just go ahead and assume that’s a compliment, since you don’t hate each other anymore.”

“That line’s a little blurry.”

“Still, seems perfectly reasonable to me.”

“Whatever floats your boat. So, Foxtrot said you’re working on a novel? What’s that like?”

 

They discuss the worldbuilding that Smriti is working on tweaking for a while, and then Foxtrot appears and leans against the doorway next to Smriti. “So how many of those names did you actually connect to faces? I was debating about having them introduce themselves in alphabetical order.”

“I think I got most people,” Smriti says. “Definitely the ones you’ve talked about.”

“That’s good because I think you’ve been adopted. Now I have a whole team of people to make sure you stand up every once in a while.”

“Wow, thanks.” She smiles like she’s not even thinking about it.

“You’re welcome.” Dex can see the same smile on both of their faces, come to think of it. He’s suddenly aware of a burning need to leave them alone.

“You should take these,” he says, offering them the plate of cookies. “Bitty  _ did _ make them to honor your coming. I think I’m gonna go see if anyone’s up for Mario Kart.”

“Thanks, Dex,” Smriti says, and Dex hears them go out the front door once he gets into the living room.

He texts Chowder.

 

**Dex:** I feel like smriti was destined to be a philosophy major

**Chowder:** any reason??

**Dex:** just gave me a lot to think about

**Chowder:** like????

 

Dex doesn’t mention what he’s actually thinking about, that being Smriti and Foxtrot, especially since he’s pretty sure he was supposed to know how they met already. Like a month ago.

 

**Dex:** the impact of architecture on language for one

**Chowder:** i c ur point

**Chowder:** def makes sense she n nursey are friends

**Dex:** yeah

**Chowder:** also the grocery list has oreos and a frightening quantity of chocolate and cream so pls ask bitty what he has planned bc whisk and i cant figure it out

**Dex:** why can’t u ask him

**Chowder:** i have to pay

**Dex:** fair enough

 

He sends two texts to Bitty, one asking what he had planned for the grocery list and the other letting him know why a mysterious quantity of cookies vanished, and then Nursey pops his head into the living room. “Dinner? Most of the team went when the dining hall opened and Bitty says he’s waiting for Chowder and Whiskey to get back from Stop n Shop.”

“I feel so loved, knowing I’m your last resort.”

“Yeah, you should.”

 

Somehow, Nursey and Dex are always around each other, and this is what Dex ponders as they walk over to the dining hall.

He’s not quite sure when one or both of them decided to bend a little, to back down in a fight or change their mind in an argument. When ‘that is so fucking annoying’ became ‘can you stop that?’, because somewhere along the way, it did— well, mostly. Neither of them underwent a personality transplant, after all. At least, Dex is pretty sure he didn’t, and if Nursey did it must have been pretty subtle.

He’s also not sure exactly when sitting together on roadies turned into sitting together at the dining hall, or when that turned into sitting together in the Haus and in classes they share and gravitating towards one another when they have the chance, and when  _ that _ changed from taking an opportunity to making it themselves. Somehow, if life was a three-legged race, they went from falling on their faces to making strides, leaps and bounds ahead of the other competitors, who in this metaphor are  _ not _ on average significantly shorter than him and Nursey, so nobody can argue that they have a height advantage. In fact, they have a height  _ disadvantage, _ because when they fall they hit the ground harder.

Dex isn’t sure it’s a good metaphor, the more he thinks about it. Or maybe it is.

“Why are you making that face?” Nursey asks.

“What face? This is my normal face.”

“Maybe if you were mildly displeased all the time, it would be, but you’ve proven  _ that _ to be false despite your efforts to the contrary.”

“Or maybe you’re just wrong about what my normal face looks like.”

“No, I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Prove it.”

“How?”

“If you really knew what my normal face looked like, you wouldn’t be asking that question.”

“Yeah? Well, if your face really always looked like that, you wouldn’t have to ask me to prove it wasn’t.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Your face doesn’t even make sense.”

“Yeah, I think that was the whole point of starting this conversation in the first place.”

 

**Chowder:** since when does the impact of architecture on language give *you* a lot to think about??

**Chowder:** you lying lyerson

**Chowder:** that’s not a word

**Chowder:** w/e

**Chowder:** besides i thought u mostly talked about how she and foxtrot met??

 

“I feel like using wide-ruled notebooks is honestly just a waste of space,” Nursey says.

“Only if you have small handwriting,” Dex points out.

“Or even medium-sized. Waste of space. The only reason to get a wide-ruled notebook is if you have big handwriting and in that case, how did your handwriting get so big that you can’t even fit it into college-ruled notebooks? Like my handwriting doesn’t even touch the lines except for the letters that have tails or whatever those things are called.”

 

**Chowder:** dex are u ignoring me

**Chowder:** i kno u dont have class

**Chowder:** i mean if u dont wanna talk rn thats like totally fine but usually ur down to text over dinner??

**Chowder:** soooo yeah

 

“You should wear your new shirt tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I’m planning on it.”

“Especially since they usually don’t serve beets more often than once every couple of weeks so you’re pretty much guaranteed to not have the exact same thing happen to it.”

“You never know, I could develop a spontaneous fondness for balsamic vinegar.”

“You already like balsamic vinegar. Besides, it still wouldn’t be beets, so it wouldn’t be the exact same thing.”

“Okay, true.”

 

**Chowder:** anyway speaking of how they met isnt it CUTE

**Chowder:** its like something out of like a webcomic or smth

**Chowder:** its so funny how people can like not even realize that theyre dating until someone else points it out to them

**Chowder:** lmao!!!!!

**Chowder:** i mean at some point u gotta figure it out eventually right

**Chowder:** but idk how long it wldve taken them w/o lou

**Chowder:** like maybe YEARS lmao!!!

**Chowder:** everyone should have someone like lou

**Chowder:** just in case

 

“I have eighteen texts from Chowder,” Dex says.

 

**Chowder:** like can u IMAGINE what their friends must have been going thru

**Chowder:** like every day OH MY GOD UR DATING JUST CAN U REALIZE IT

**Chowder:** lol!!!!

 

“Now I have twenty-one.”

“That’s blatant favoritism, he usually only texts me like sixteen times in a row.”

“What can I say? I’m Chowder’s favorite.”

Dex unlocks his phone to read the texts, one by one. 

“Dude, what is it with you and the weird faces?” Nursey asks a minute later.

“I just did not realize how much Chowder shipped Foxtrot and Smriti, I guess,” Dex says slowly.

“Oh, yeah, he, like, adores the story of how they started dating. I have no idea why.”

“Same. Maybe it’s like something he saw in a movie.”

“Entirely possible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOYS. WHY.  
> Also: yes, Chowder is definitely hinting at something in those texts... which is fairly obvious to those of us who are also privy to his group chat with Foxtrot and Bitty from an earlier chapter.  
> Also yay me!!! I updated super fast!!!!! I thought I wasn't going to be able to post the chapter today because I hadn't written anything long enough but I think it's a decent length now.  
> Update interval is not going to continue to be this quick, but hopefully there won't be too much wait between chapters. Once school ends I think I'll be able to post a lot more frequently.


	8. Chapter 8

Nursey isn’t sure when, exactly, he became the person who people came to when they wanted to gush about relationships. Their own, somebody else’s, they always come to Nursey, and they always leave him feeling like he’s missing something. Everything will make sense, and then suddenly Nursey is struck by the feeling that the other person is saying something else which he can’t— understand isn’t the right word, he’s pretty confident he could understand, he’s just lacking a key piece of information about something that somehow, everybody else seems to know.

It started with Chowder and Farmer, but that never struck Nursey oddly, since they’ll gush about each other to anyone who’ll listen. When Bitty decided to relate all the joys of his relationship with Jack to Nursey, it wasn’t much more of a surprise. Then Foxtrot started doing it, then Smriti, both about each other— they really like telling the story of how they started officially dating, which Nursey can appreciate since it  _ is _ pretty unusual, but it may become excessive if they repeat it many more times. Then Chowder started talking about how cute Foxtrot and Smriti were and Bitty told Nursey anecdotes about how Ransom and Holster were doing and apparently they  _ had _ started dating somewhere along the way, nobody really knows when, not even Ransom and Holster. Bitty says they were the last to know. Pretty much the only person who hasn’t started talking to Nursey about relationships is Dex.

Chowder is here now, discussing plans for his and Farmer’s anniversary. It’s not for a while, but he seems to be coming up with as many ideas as possible well in advance, before the panic sets in. Nursey can respect that, but there’s one important problem.

“Dude, this is super neat, but I’m not sure why you’re talking to me about it. Just because I was born on Valentine’s Day doesn’t make me, like, the king of romance or anything.”

Chowder shrugs. “You’ll tell me if something sounds stupid. Or ridiculous, I guess.”

“Okay,” Nursey says.

“But I was like thinking about it and it’s kind of funny because Farmer and I didn’t know each other for that long before we started dating! I mean we weren’t like strangers or anything but we definitely hadn’t known each other for years or anything like that. And I was thinking that it’s really funny because we could have known each other as friends for way longer and I think we still would’ve wound up together, but we got so much more time because, I don’t know, I guess we just went for it!”

Once again, there’s that feeling of Nursey missing something— in this case, he’s pretty sure that Chowder is deliberately steering the conversation in a certain direction, but he has  _ no idea _ what direction that is.

“There is something to be said for not hesitating,” Nursey says.

Chowder nods. “Agreed. I mean, it worked out really, really well for me!”

“And for Farmer.”

“And for Bitty and Jack!”

“Okay, but what about Foxtrot and Smriti? Obviously it can’t be universal.”

“But they were basically already dating, they just didn’t know it,” Chowder counters. “Besides, my point still stands that if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. Waiting longer doesn’t do anything but deprive you.”

Nursey feels like Chowder has a very specific person in mind, given the significant look that Chowder is giving him.

“Uh-huh. Are you trying to get me to start dating Kevin? I’ve literally only talked about him like twice, you and Farmer still knew each other way better before you started dating.”

“I’m not,” Chowder says, and Nursey believes him, but there’s also that nagging feeling that Chowder  _ does _ have something in mind.

“Okay.”

“But back to the anniversary, we’ve never gone rock climbing together, I think we should do that at some point, what do you think?”

 

**Chowder:** nursey thinks im trying to get him to ask kevin out

**Foxtrot:** lol

**Bitty:** im just???

**Bitty:** incredible

**Bitty:** thats amazing

**Bitty:** and frustrating

**Chowder:** ikr

 

“Also, do you know where Dex is?” Chowder asks. “He doesn’t have a class right now, does he?”

“Oh, he’s right upstairs,” Nursey says. “Probably doing homework, I don’t know. He’s always there around now.”

“‘Swawesome, go get him and I’ll text Farmer, we should have a movie night.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

“We’re just getting an early start.”

“That’s acceptable.” Nursey leaves Chowder in the kitchen and heads upstairs to retrieve Dex. The door to their room is open, which is how Dex prefers it if the Haus isn’t too loud otherwise. Nursey doesn’t have an opinion one way or the other, but he does knock on the doorframe to alert Dex, who’s hunched over his desk in a way that Nursey can’t believe hasn’t given him back problems yet. “Yo, Chowder wants to do a movie night. He also wants to start it now.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon,” Dex says as he sits up.

“I know. He said we were getting an early start. Do you have anything you need to do first?”

“No, I’m pretty much done with my homework and I talked to my parents yesterday.”

“Good.” Nursey knows from experience that if Dex forgets to Skype his parents at least once a week they’ll call him about once an hour until he picks up. It’s sweet, in an irritating way, because Nursey’s support of close relationships between parents and children can only go so far when Dex’s phone starts making the Skype ringtone. And Dex is in the shower. And his phone is under the bed.

That happens surprisingly frequently. Nursey has given up on trying to get Dex’s phone out from under the bed because he inevitably hits his head on the bedframe. Somehow, Dex always manages to get it out himself. Nursey is convinced that there’s a secret lever that will lift the bed up if one needs to, say, look for something underneath it, and Dex has never shown it to him.

Dex closes his laptop and stands up, which consists of scooting out from having wedged his lower body under the desk, forgetting to take his earbuds out and having them get pulled out once he gets too far away, unfurling his left leg from where he was sitting on it, and rolling his shoulders back as he actually sets both feet on the ground and stands up. This last part is anticlimactic, mostly because Dex doesn’t actually put both feet down— that is to say, he does, but he immediately removes one.

“Pins and needles,” he says, standing up on one foot and using the desk for support.

“Maybe it wouldn’t happen so much if you didn’t sit on your leg all the time.”

“Maybe you... shut up,” Dex retorts.

“Wow, effective. Are you just going to hop down the stairs?”

“No, you’re going to carry me down the stairs.”

“The fuck? In what world does it make sense to entrust me with your physical well-being?”

“I mean, maybe it’s not one of my  _ best _ decisions, but I think you’ll probably manage somehow. Like under pressure.”

“Under what sort of pressure?”

“Gravity.”

Nursey is getting a bad feeling about this. “See, when you said ‘carry,’ I thought perhaps you meant something like me supporting your weight while you hop down the stairs.”

“Except that’s not what ‘carry’ means,” Dex points out.

“This is such a bad idea.”

“You can choose, piggyback or bridal style.”

“That doesn’t make it better!”

“Hmm, I think it does.”

“What about fireman style?”

“No.”

“Piggyback then, I guess,” Nursey says. It’s the better out of the two options— he doesn’t trust either of them to manage keeping any extremities away from the walls and doorframes and bannisters, as is a hazard of bridal style. At least with piggyback then Nursey can’t be blamed if Dex’s feet hit the walls.

“Okay. Here, wait, I can’t jump on, can you—”

“Yeah,” Nursey says, and he bends his legs— well, he squats, really— so Dex can climb on. “You  _ do _ realize that anything that happens as a direct or indirect consequence of this is your fault, right?”

“Shush,” Dex says, his breath fluttering behind Nursey’s ear.

They make it out of the room, at least. Dex skillfully avoids the doorframe, and he congratulates himself for this as Nursey walks towards the stairs, where Dex promptly bangs his foot on a bannister. It’s not even the same foot that was numb earlier. It’s the other one.

“The world is out to get you,” Nursey says.

And Dex laughs, not a loud laugh but a low one, and says, “It’s a good thing you’re here, otherwise I would have had a hell of a time getting down there myself.”

“Usually  _ I _ say that to  _ you.” _ Nursey pauses on the landing so that he can readjust his grip on Dex’s lower thighs. “ _ And _ usually when I’m drunk.”

“You have never once thanked me that coherently when you were drunk. Eloquently, yes, but did I have any idea what you were saying? Hell no.”

“‘S not my fault you never put any effort into explicating poetry.”

“I’m pretty sure explicating poetry would  _ not _ have helped.”

“ _ I’m _ pretty sure you’re wrong.”

“Do you even remember what I’m referring to?”

“No, but why should that affect my certainty?”

“Of course,” Dex says. “Silly me.”

“Yes, silly you.”

 

Somehow, they get down the rest of the stairs without major incident, although Dex chirps Nursey every time he strays from the exact center of each stair, and Nursey responds in kind, because really, nobody with even the smallest modicum of common sense would entrust Nursey with carrying someone else for an extended period of time.

“I’m pretty sure you would have been happier limping down the stairs until your leg regained feeling,” Nursey says.

“I never pass up an opportunity to get things in return for my pain and suffering.”

“I thought numbness was the opposite of pain.”

“I had pins and needles, not numbness.”

“So you’re saying you don’t have it anymore?”

“Are you going to drop me if I say yes?”

“Of course not.”

“That sounds suspiciously false.”

“So you’re saying your leg is fine now?” Nursey asks as he lets Dex’s legs slip a little.

“My leg,” Dex says haughtily, “is not sure yet.”

“Your leg had better make up its mind sometime soon, because we’re almost at the foot of the stairs.”

“I’ll notify it to think about it.”

They proceed. On the last step, Nursey pauses and says, “Is your leg fine now?”

“Yes,” Dex says, and then Nursey lets go of his legs, like he was obviously planning to all along, and he wonders for a split second whether Dex forgot how obvious it was, and then he’s not wondering anymore because Dex didn’t let go of his shoulders so he’s dragging Nursey down with him.

He has the next split second to wonder how hard the landing will be, and who’s going to land on top, and then they land and it becomes rather apparent that really, neither of them is.

Dex’s arms are still around Nursey, although they’ve wound up around his waist, probably because of the force with which Dex dropped to the ground. Their legs are tangled together, but for the most part, they’ve wound up side by side, instead of the two-person dogpile that Nursey was envisioning on his way down.

“Let’s not do that again,” Dex says.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Nursey replies.

There are footsteps, and then Chowder is there, standing over where they’re lying at the foot of the stairs. “Um, what exactly happened here?”

“Let’s not get into that,” Nursey says, and he and Dex begin the laborious process of untangling themselves and getting up. “How about we just forget that Dex made me carry him down the stairs for reasons known to nobody on earth?”

“You were the one who decided to drop me.”

“You were the one who dragged me down with you.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to get into that,” Chowder interjects, and Dex makes eye contact with Nursey, and that’s about all either of them need to burst into laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is this???? three updates in two weeks????? what happened???? it's almost like i have finals to study for and i'm procrastinating!!!!!!!  
> in all seriousness that is exactly what im doing. ty to jxc for cheering me on :) not in the avoiding studying but in the writing part lol  
> this is def gonna be my longest fic in the airport au & depending on how things go it may be my longest fic on ao3 (but that's... not super hard to do...)  
> ANYWAY! yay update! :)


	9. Chapter 9

The second movie is winding down and Dex is pretty sure he didn’t absorb the last half hour of the plot, because what he’s half-watching right now makes no sense. 

Chowder is dozing, jerking awake every few minutes, and Nursey has been asleep since eight minutes and forty-three seconds into the second movie. (To be fair, it  _ was _ a pretty slow beginning.) Although Farmer is out of Dex’s line of sight, he knows she can’t be asleep, because she’s talking to him— she’s kept up a pretty constant monologue since the first plot twist, which Farmer has deemed stupid, and explained her thought process at length. That’s the best part of watching movies with her, if Dex isn’t hooked on the plot or particularly attached to the characters. And at frog movie night, they mostly watch bad movies. 

“...if he sleeps like that the whole night.”

“Huh?”

Dex can hear Farmer laugh. “You’re basically asleep too, aren’t you. I said, Nursey’s going to have an awful crick in his neck when he wakes up if he sleeps like that the whole night.” She’s twisted around a little— Dex can barely see her in the dim light of the TV, leaning past Chowder to give him a meaningful look.

He just looks back. “What? It’s his fault for falling asleep in the armchair.”

“Okay, yeah, I see your point.” Farmer leans down off the couch to grab a throw pillow that someone kicked on the floor an hour or so ago. “I know  _ I’m _ not going to be in the same predicament.”

“I’ll turn off the TV,” Dex says, since it’s just rolling credits anyway and Farmer’s right, he is basically asleep.

Once it’s off, he finds his way back to the pile of blankets and pillows he’s gradually collected over the evening. It’s at the foot of the couch that Chowder and Farmer are sharing, partially because that’s where all the pillows were before they fell onto the floor one by one. It’s very comfortable.

The only problem is that it holds heat  _ really _ well.

This is a pretty significant problem.

See, Dex has fixed a lot of the drafts in the Haus, but that comes at the price of reducing a bit of air flow. During the day, it’s not an issue, because the fans, ceiling or portable, are all noisy as fuck and they keep the windows open. And the nights tend towards the colder side, which is great when they want to keep the Haus reasonably warm. But it’s almost the end of the school year, and outside isn’t as cold as it used to be, and the windows that aren’t in bedrooms are all pretty squeaky (in case of an attack by LAX bros— also, usually there’s no reason for anyone to be opening them in the middle of the night).

Dex folds up the top blanket and sticks it under the others on the left side, since that area isn’t quite as padded anyway, and it’s not like the blanket is helping him sleep.

Then, he stares at the lamentably loud ceiling fan, directly above the armchair where Nursey is still sprawled out without the slightest hint of discomfort, even though his arms and legs are dangling off the chair. For some reason, Nursey’s elected to lie on his stomach, the crown of his head pressed up against the arm of the chair. Farmer is right about the possible repercussions of  _ that. _ Nursey may even end up with the leg that he’s curled under himself falling asleep, and then they’ll be in precisely the reverse situation to that afternoon’s. (Hopefully with less falling down the stairs.)

Dex sits up slowly, and peels off his socks, and that helps but not enough, and he stands up and goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. If nothing else, the absence of his body heat from the pile of blankets (and the living room in general) will let it cool down somewhat.

The water helps. He drinks it slowly, standing in the kitchen (if he sits, he’ll probably fall asleep before he’s even finished his water, and the whole point of the pillows and blankets was to  _ avoid _ falling asleep in an uncomfortable location, thank you very much). When he gets back, he folds his socks together and puts them on top of the TV, where they most likely won’t get lost by morning.

The blanket pile is a little cooler, enough that Dex can probably fall asleep, but just when he’s about to lay back down he looks at Nursey again, who’s still lying on the armchair like someone dropped him there.

He looks at Chowder and Farmer.

He looks at Nursey.

He looks at Farmer, who was the last person awake.

He thinks,  _ why am I stressing about this, it’s a pillow, there is literally no reason for me to not do it _ , and he grabs the orange smiley-face pillow and tucks it under Nursey’s head, so he’s not squished into the armrest. (Holster is the one who donated that particular pillow to the Haus, once he was over his sewing spree. It’s bright orange and fuzzy and circular and the face is made out of pieces of black felt that Holster stitched on by hand instead of borrowing Ransom’s sister’s sewing machine (he also glued them on for good measure), and he stuffed it with actual cotton instead of old worn-out socks, which aren’t as soft but they  _ are _ cheaper.)

Then Dex glances at Farmer again, who will definitely know it was him, and then he shakes his head and goes back to his blanket pile and he only stares up at the ceiling fan for a couple minutes before really falling asleep.

 

The first thing Dex notices when he wakes up is that he’s the last one awake, and the second thing he notices is that there’s a distinctive smell wafting through into the living room.

_ Coffee, god bless. _

His watch says it’s eleven in the morning, even if his body says it’s  _ time to go back to sleep, look how soft that pile of blankets is! _

Nope. Not going back to sleep. Retaining as functional a sleep schedule as possible.

The orange smiley face pillow has been carefully arranged on the armchair, and the pillows and blankets that had remained on the couch, instead of being snagged by Dex, have already been folded and put back. Dex briefly considers doing the same with his, but the thing about being over six feet is that he needs a lot of blankets and pillows, and that amount looks frankly insurmountable without some caffeine in his system, so he proceeds into the kitchen.

“‘Sup,” Farmer says, raising her coffee mug at him in greeting. 

“Where’s Nursey?” Dex asks. “I would think he wouldn’t be awake enough to have a complete range of motion yet, unless you’ve been up for way longer than I thought.”

“He  _ did _ fall asleep a good couple of hours before you,” Chowder points out. “Besides, he went to go meet up with Ford.”

“Still surprised he was actually functional,” Dex says as he pours himself a cup of coffee, which leaves the coffeepot nearly empty. It’s a sad state of affairs when he sleeps through the entire production and most of the consumption of a pot of coffee.

“Well, he didn’t have to deal with his neck being sore, which probably contributed,” Farmer says pointedly.

Dex raises his eyebrows at her over the rim of his coffee mug. “One would assume so.”

“That was nice of you.”

“I’m a nice person.”

“Sometimes.”

“Okay, true.” She sips at her coffee, and that would be the end of that, except it’s not.

“He said to thank you, by the way,” Chowder says. “And also he says he knew it was you because literally nobody else would have given him the smiley face pillow.”

“Huh?”

“It’s like the best pillow in the Haus that doesn’t actually belong on a bed.”

“Personally, I’m not a fan of the glue, but the cotton stuffing is a definite bonus,” Farmer volunteers before, ideally, Dex would have had an opportunity to think too hard about that last statement. Except his brain has kicked into high gear (probably because he’s finished most of his coffee by now), and of  _ course _ he’s overanalyzing his choice of the damn smiley face pillow now, because frankly, overthinking is what Dex does.

“You look bemused,” Chowder observes. “The caffeine not doing its job?”

“It’s whatever,” Dex says. “I don’t think I’ve been awake long enough to really have the best access to my mental facilities right now.”

“Honestly, I’ve been up for an hour and a half but same,” Farmer says.

Dex finishes his coffee, and he winds up dumping everything that’s left in the pot into his mug and finishing that too.

 

**Dex:** why am i the only person who would give nursey the smiley face pillow though

**Dex:** like i bet if chowder had the smiley face pillow he would have given it to nursey

**Dex:** i just had it already

**Dex:** i don’t understand why this is significant

**Bitty:** ???????

**Bitty:** can u start at the beginning bc i have no idea what’s going on

**Bitty:** like obviously you have a train of thought but i don’t think i’m anywhere near the station

**Bitty:** if that makes sense

**Dex:** yeah it does

**Bitty:** swawesome

**Dex:** we did frog movie night and nursey fell asleep on the armchair and farmer said he was going to wind up with a crick in his neck if he slept like that all night

**Dex:** and i had a ton of pillows anyway

**Dex:** so i gave him one

**Dex:** and i gave him the smiley face pillow and for some reason this is important

**Dex:** chowder seems to think it’s important

**Dex:** BITTY WHY DOES IT FEEL LIKE HE HAS AN ULTERIOR MOTIVE EVERY TIME HE TALKS TO ME

**Bitty:** oh honey

**Bitty:** u sweet summer child

**Dex:** okay 1 my birthday isn’t in the summer and 2 what am i not getting

**Bitty:** dw about it

**Bitty:** chowder is really really happy that ur like actual friends now

**Dex:** and?

**Bitty:** we all are

**Bitty:** srsly dex dw

**Bitty:** i mean it when i say chowder is just happy about the way things are going

 

Bitty isn’t any more helpful, so eventually Dex says goodbye to him, and then he opens a different conversation.

 

**Dex:** you’re welcome for the pillow by the way

 

Nursey’s typing bubble is there for way longer than it should be, considering that what he finally sends is ‘yeah thought it was u’.

 

**Nursey:** c said something?

**Dex:** obviously lol

**Dex:** you were already gone by the time i was even awake

**Nursey:** oh how the turntables

**Dex:** although how did you know it was me?

**Nursey:** well #1 u had that pillow in the 1st place

**Nursey:** so that was easy :))))

**Nursey:** also i could FEEL the rage seeping through that felt

**Nursey:** it was like how DARE u fall asleep somewhere uncomfortable

**Dex:** ok yeah true

**Dex:** nursey patrol isn’t just for kegsters

**Dex:** it’s a way of life

**Nursey:** awwwwww william

**Nursey:** r &h would be so proud of u

**Dex:** yeah i’m sure their d-man senses are tingling right now and in ten seconds they’re going to set up a conference call

**Nursey:** i legit wouldnt be surprised

**Dex:** honestly same

 

“Hey, Holtzy, did you just get a really weird text from Johnson?” Ransom asks.

“Yeah, wonder when he started using a phone again. For a while it was just vague Facebook messages.”

“That was a weird month, yeah.”

 

**Johnson:** i’d like you to know that there’s some convenient samwell hockey symmetry going on right now. you should probably try to make it back before graduation for a few days to set more things in motion.

 

“I mean, we have the space in our schedules,” Holster says. “Should we just—”

“Yeah.”

“‘Swawesome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fINALLY i got this done!!! life got really unexpectedly busy but this chapter is longer than usual so there's that?  
> as u can see things are starting to come together!!! :))))))  
> sorry for the short end note i'm tired lol  
> as always tysm for reading <3 <3 <3 <3


	10. Chapter 10

“So Ransom and Holster decided to come back for a week around graduation,” Bitty says. “I have no idea why but do you want to meet them while you’re here? Ransom in particular is pissed that he had to be on the other side of the country when we went to your practice.”

“Oh, sure. You can come to another practice, if you want. Nobody on the team will mind. Even if you don’t bring food.”

“They like me that much, huh?”

“Sure do.” Jack smiles on-screen. “Bring enough people and we can mix up Falconers and Samwell, or ex-Samwell, and play.”

“Holster will faint, I hope you realize that.”

“In a good way?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“Good.”

Bitty’s phone buzzes then, and he glances at the screen to see that it’s from Foxtrot, to his  group chat with her and Chowder. “Sorry, hold on for one second, I have to make sure this isn’t an emergency.” Or, well, a relative emergency, but Jack is pretty knowledgeable about all the romantic shenanigans going on at the Haus by this point. 

 

**Foxtrot:** nursey is texting dex

**Foxtrot:** he won’t put his phone down

**Foxtrot:** i would be irritated if it wasn’t cute

**Foxtrot:** as it is, it’s adorable

**Foxtrot:** he’s very smiley

**Chowder:** good!!!

**Chowder:** did i tell you about the pillow?

**Foxtrot:** no??

 

Bitty puts his phone back down as Chowder launches into his retelling of the epic story. “Not an emergency.”

“That’s good. I’ll send you the dates of when we’re having practices you can invade around graduation.”

“Thanks! I should probably go, I have to go talk with my advisor in ten minutes, but see you Friday. Love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you too, Bits.”

 

Dex is pretty sure Nursey is with Foxtrot, but you wouldn’t know from the sheer volume of texts he’s getting.

(And, of course, replying to, because Nursey rarely texts people if he doesn’t want to start a conversation.)

 

**Dex:** aren’t you? with foxtrot?

**Nursey:** yeah she says hi

**Dex:** hi foxtrot

**Nursey:** i mean you’re ‘doing a coding project’ so who’s REALLY not doing what they’re supposed to be doing

**Dex:** still you

**Nursey:** also u

**Nursey:** u have no defense

**Dex:** do you?

**Nursey:** lol no

**Dex:** same

**Nursey:** usually when foxtrot and i hang out we just text people

**Nursey:** it’s a great friendship

**Nursey:** we don’t have to go to restaurants alone but we also don’t actually have to interact with each other if we’re not feeling it

**Nursey:** she’s on her phone too

**Nursey:** w smriti

**Nursey:** although she did also stop to look at the menu

**Dex:** that you have memorized

**Nursey:** mhm :)

 

“Dex, my loop is being stupid, can you look over it?” Tango asks. “Chowder found one bug but we’ve gone over the code like eleven times and we still haven’t figured out what’s happening.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Dex says, and Tango passes him his laptop.

“So how’s Nursey?” Chowder asks from the foot of the bed. They’ve elected to all work in Chowder’s room because first of all, he sprang for a queen-sized mattress, and second of all he has the most easily accessible wall sockets. Dex, by virtue of size, had laid claim to the head of the bed, since that was where all the pillows were. Tango is sitting cross-legged in the middle and Chowder’s sprawled out at the other end.

“Good,” Dex says as he starts at the beginning of Tango’s code and starts reading. “He’s hanging out with Foxtrot and apparently they’re just texting other people.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Chowder hits save and shuts his laptop. “Any luck?”

“Give me a minute.”

“Hey, did Bitty tell either of you that Ransom and Holster are coming back for graduation?” Tango says a few seconds later. 

“That’s good, I want to know what they’ve been doing with their lives,” Dex says. “Besides finally realize they’ve been dating for four years. Also, I think the bug’s in the—” He’s interrupted as Chowder immediately begins a coughing fit. “C, you okay?”

In response, Chowder gets up and leaves the room, presumably to get a glass of water.

“Hope he’s okay, that was weird. Anyway, I think it’s in the fourteenth line, your query doesn’t look right to me.”

“Really?” Tango crawls to the head of the bed and looks over Dex’s shoulder. “Oh, yeah, good point. Thanks, Dex.”

Chowder returns a few minutes later without a trace of disturbance over his unexpected coughing fit. “Did you figure it out?”

“Yeah,” Tango says. “So now Dex just has to put his phone away so he can finish, then we have like half an hour until the dining hall opens for dinner.”

Dex looks up from his laptop to find both Chowder and Tango watching him. The former is grinning.

“Uh?”

 

**Dex:** HELLO NURSEY.

**Dex:** TIS I, CHOWDER.

**Dex:** DEX HAS TO FINISH HIS CODING PROJECT SO I HAVE HIS PHONE

**Dex:** HOW HAS YOUR DAY BEEN?

**Dex:** also hi it’s tango here too

**Dex:** we’re both done but dex was on his phone so he took forever

**Dex:** he doesn’t get it back until he submits the project

**Nursey:** that’s intense

**Dex:** yeah

**Dex:** hi, chowder again! tell foxtrot to reply to my text because it’s important

**Nursey:** what does it say?

**Dex:** it says ‘dorks’

**Dex:** that’s it

**Nursey:** um ok?

 

“Tango, you take Dex’s phone, I need to text Foxtrot. Protect it with your life.”

“You realize I can hear you,” Dex says. “You’re sitting less than five feet away from me.”

“Protect it with your  _ life, _ Tango!”

Tango nods solemnly and accepts Dex’s phone from Chowder’s outstretched hands. “I swear.”

“After successful completion of this task, I will dub you a knight of the realm for your service.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“No problem.”

Dex rolls his eyes and accepts that the best way to get his phone back with minimal damage is to just finish the project.

And, to be fair, he  _ does _ make it about half an hour before chatting Nursey through his email account.

 

**Poindexter, William:** so what sorts of awful things are tango and chowder saying about me?

**Nurse, Derek:** nm tbh

**Nurse, Derek:** theyre chirping you for taking so long

**Poindexter, William:** i would chirp them for being so uncreative with access to my phone but i don’t want them to *get* creative

**Nurse, Derek:** im assuming ur not done w ur project?

**Poindexter, William:** nah

**Poindexter, William:** but i barely have anything else to do

**Poindexter, William:** so

**Nurse, Derek:** ...

**Nurse, Derek:** so?

**Poindexter, William:** soooooooooo

**Poindexter, William:** sup

**Nurse, Derek:** nm

**Nurse, Derek:** u?

**Poindexter, William:** same

 

“Dex? Are you almost done yet?” Tango asks.

“Oh, yeah, I just need like ten more minutes.”

“Okay, cool.”

“I’m going to laugh about this for a long time,” Chowder says. Sometime in the last few minutes he’s rolled over to let his head and legs dangle off the sides of the bed. He’s holding his phone at an awkward angle so that he can text Foxtrot “The longest difference between how long it took us to finish an assignment, because you of all people were busy texting.”

“I  _ do _ text people.”

“Yeah, but you’re also, like, the only person I know who  _ always _ puts your phone away when you need to get stuff done.”

Dex is quite glad that he muted his computer, as Nursey messages him again almost exactly at the same time that Chowder finishes his sentence.

 

**Nurse, Derek:** u almost done?

**Poindexter, William:** yeah i havent made negative progress

**Poindexter, William:** chowder has opted to chirp me out loud

**Nurse, Derek:** lol

**Poindexter, William:** besides ur the only one who makes negative progress on assignments in this chat

**Nurse, Derek:** pft

 

Nursey begins making his case that he never actually makes negative progress because tearing a poem to shreds and starting over is just a practical approach to editing, and Dex hits ‘submit’ on his project.

“Hey, I’m—” He’s interrupted when he lifts his eyes from the computer screen and notices the Portable Sin Bin about six inches from his nose.

“One dollar, now let’s go to the dining hall,” Chowder says.

“What? One dollar for what?”

“Finding a way around our drastic measures to get you to finish your project faster,” Tango supplies. “Alternately known as smiling far too much at your laptop screen to plausibly be coding.”

“Fine.” Dex digs out a dollar and drops it in the bag, which Chowder seems to just be keeping with him, since usually they store all the Sin Bins in the storage closet downstairs.

 

**Poindexter, William:** done now, heading to dining hall

**Poindexter, William:** chowder fined me for smiling at my screen

**Nurse, Derek:** lol no sympathy

**Nurse, Derek:** u were the one who started messaging on multiple platforms

**Poindexter, William:** you say that like you didn’t reply

**Nurse, Derek:** PFT

**Poindexter, William:** pft

**Poindexter, William:** k bye

 

Tango passes Dex his phone as they leave Chowder’s room, and when he turns it on, he sees another text message from Nursey.

 

**Nursey:** foxtrot and i are coming back to the haus soon so well miss you until after ur back from dinner, ttyl :)

 

Dex finds himself smiling, and then he finds himself not smiling, because Chowder is still within easy reach, should he decide to bring out the Portable Sin Bin again.

But why is he worried about the Portable Sin Bin? Yeah, Chowder has basically appointed himself its lord and master, but last he checked, smiling at a text from your friend wasn’t a fineable offense.  _ Especially _ not for a full dollar. Unless, of course, Chowder spontaneously decided to make ‘evading one’s teammates’ attempts to make you focus’ a fineable offense, which he would need the rest of the Samwell High Court’s approval for, and Dex is on said Samwell High Court. So it can’t be that.

_ What are the fineable offenses that result in one dollar? _

Hm, there’s leaving used tissues everywhere, smiling at your phone when texting a crush or significant other, and leaving wet towels in the bathroom instead of bringing them to the laundry room to dry. And the only one of those that’s even  _ slightly _ applicable is the second one, but Dex and Nursey aren’t dating.

Although actually, Dex would be lying if he said he’d never contemplated what it would be like to date Nursey. And he’d  _ really _ be lying if he didn’t think sometimes that it might even happen, that at some point each of them would wake up and realize they were into each other and somehow everything would come together, and Dex is pretty sure he can’t even  _ comprehend _ the amount of chirping they would get from the rest of the team but, you know, Ransom and Holster got through it. (Although come to think of it, when they revealed they were dating, everyone was mostly just grateful that they’d finally clarified their relationship status.) He’d probably have to learn the names of Nursey’s friends too, particularly since he’d probably be seeing more of them, and Dex  _ does _ know Smriti already so that would probably be okay. Everything would work itself out.

The extra not-fun part is that Nursey and Dex are friends now, so all that isn’t completely impossible. And the  _ extra _ extra not-fun part, if Dex is being completely honest with himself, is that he would be more than okay with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH THEY'RE SUCH DORKS I CAN'T  
> like some of those lines physically pained me to write i was like GAHHHH OPEN YOUR EYES  
> and also???? what is this????????? progress???????????? dex is !!! getting somewhere!!!!!!  
> i'M REALLY EMOTIONAL OKAY  
> so this end note is a mess but yeah!! two updates in like two days, and this one is almost 2k!! hopefully that makes up for there being such a long accidental hiatus lol  
> thank you so much for reading!! <3


	11. Chapter 11

Dex’s head is practically ringing with that extra extra not-fun part, almost like it’s the first time he’s ever actually admitted it to himself. Oh, wait, it fucking is. And now it’s like a loose tooth he can’t stop probing— more than okay, more than okay, more than okay more than okay morethanokaymorethan _ okay. _ And the cherry on the cake is that not only are Chowder and Tango flanking him, he still hasn’t managed to ask Whiskey to transfer some of his poker face to Dex, and he never saw Chowder put the Portable Sin Bin away.

Basically, Dex needs to think about something else, no matter what it may be, before anything embarrassing happens.

_ Actually, I take back the ‘no matter what it may be,’ because that would just invite far too many mishaps. _

But his brain is practically rubbernecking, so every few milliseconds Dex thinks,  _ Hey, did I really just come to that conclusion? _ And the answer is inevitably  _ yes, _ so it’s not like this is a helpful line of thought. 

Dex’s hand itches for his phone, just to take it out, scroll through his texts with Nursey, and— what? Overanalyze every single one? Look through them for clues that oh, wait, he’s  _ actually _ had a crush on Nursey since day one and he just hasn’t realized it?

Nah.

Besides, that would probably just be depressing, since just a couple days ago the main focus of their conversation had been how Nursey was pretty sure Chowder wanted him to ask Kevin out. (Dex isn’t actually a hundred percent sure who Kevin is, but he thinks he’s heard the name in conjunction with words like ‘ukulele.’) Nursey never figured out whether he actually wanted to do something about it, but he did seem satisfied with providing a line-by-line recap of the conversation so that Dex would affirm that yes, it did sound like Chowder was angling for something in that direction.

That actually reminds Dex of something.

“So, Chowder, Nursey said you were hinting at him and Kevin getting together?”

Chowder sighs dramatically for some reason. “How many times do I have to say that I didn’t have any ulterior motives in that conversation?”

Tango coughs. “Sounds fake but okay.”

“Did you just— was that a  _ meme?” _

“Tango’s on my side here.”

“I wasn’t trying to get him to ask Kevin out, oh my god... And ‘your side’?”

Dex shrugs. “I mean, yeah, we’re arguing different points here, aren’t we?”

Chowder stops abruptly and plants his feet on the ground like a superhero. “I will have you know that if I was trying to set up people, I would do it in such a way that they didn’t know they were being set up. That’s why I’m the best matchmaker! I have a perfect record, no losses.”

“You also have no wins,” Dex says as they start walking again towards the dining hall.

“Shush.”

“Is that really true though? I mean, he  _ did  _ encourage Bitty to go for it,” Tango points out.

“See?”

“But that goes  _ completely _ against what you just said about your technique.”

“I don’t have to have a consistent technique, I can tailor it to each case as needed. That’s the best way to make sure it works!”

“Sure.”

The walk is silent for a few seconds, then Chowder says, “Maybe I should make business cards.”

“But you just said that if you were trying to set up people you would do it so that they didn’t know they were being set up. I think business cards would kind of ruin that image.”

“I could give the cards to their friends!”

“But what if the people you were trying to set up saw them?” Tango asks.

“Then their friends could deal with it. I’d have, like, a waiver or something.” Chowder is silent for a moment in contemplation. “Hmm, yeah, I think this is actually a pretty good idea. I’d need to have client reviews, though, so I should get to work on that.”

 

Nursey is already in their room when Dex gets back from dinner, sitting cross-legged on his bed with a bag of chips and staring out the window.

“Dinner was weird,” Dex says by way of hello. “Chowder kept talking about this matchmaking business he wants to set up? Anyway. How are things?”

“Oh, decent.” Nursey selects his next chip with care before unceremoniously stuffing it into his mouth. “I  _ did _ actually wind up talking to Foxtrot as we texted other people, so the evening wasn’t a total wash for face-to-face interaction. Also, do you have a second? A phrase popped into my head and it’s stuck there, and I figure the best way to get it out is to write it down, but I need your opinion on how the phrase feels.”

“Mine, specifically? Or just because I walked in first?”

“Um, both? Definite yes to the latter, tentative yes to the former because you don’t know what the poem is about. I was talking to Foxtrot about it over dinner so I can’t ask her because she’ll interpret it in the lens of the subject, which is  _ not _ what I want, because I’m thinking about making it the first line. I need to know how it sounds as the first part of the poem that you see. Therefore, asking you.”

“Okay.” Dex plops down on his own bed. “What is it?”

“There’s more to the phrase than I’m telling you, since I want to do something with part of it and then the other part later, but— okay. ‘Stuck in eyes.’”

Dex considers. “That’s either romantic or gross. Or possibly both, but I don’t want to consider that.”

“I can work with that. ‘Swawesome, dude, thanks.”

“So do you usually come up with lines when you’re doing something else?”

“More than you’d expect, considering the amount of time I spend hammering things out by hand. Chip?”

“What kind?”

“Salt and vinegar.”

“No.”

“Good, I got these so I wouldn’t have to share.” Salt and vinegar chips are one of the more hotly debated snack foods in the Haus, and with Wicks and Bitty elsewhere, Nursey’s chips are pretty safe.

“Then why did you offer?”

Nursey shrugs. “It’s polite and you don’t like them, so the chances of you actually accepting are minimal.”

They fall into a comfortable silence. Nursey looks out the window and doesn’t crinkle his bag of chips, and Dex stares up at the ceiling and wonders idly if he should get some work done so he can get further ahead of his due dates.

He’s not sure how long they stay that way. Eventually, Nursey tosses the bag into the trash can— Dex can hear the rustling of the trash bag when it makes impact. He’s vaguely aware of the light changing across his face, turning from red to gray, and at some point between the end of sunset and the start of nighttime he sits up. “Do you remember when we met?”

“Yeah,” Nursey says, unfazed by the sudden breaking of silence. “I was pretty distracted what with the whole college thing, but I do remember us interacting enough for my mind to recreate all of “What Is This Feeling” from  _ Wicked. _ ”

“I’m assuming that’s the one about loathing.”

“Yeah. I’ll make you listen to it with me sometime, it’s great.”

They fall silent again, but not for as long, because Dex says, not entirely sure where the thought came from, “Hey, sorry about that one time I bit you when we were going to pick up Bitty from the airport.”

“It’s chill, it didn’t hurt. I was mostly just horrified by the notion. But thanks.”

“That was a trainwreck of a car ride, wasn’t it?”

“I would say it was more of a car wreck. Don’t mix up your locomotives, William.”

“Shut up, Derek.”

“Ha.”

“Besides, we didn’t actually wreck the car.”

Nursey hums in acknowledgement, and Dex idly wonders if it’s late enough for this to count as a late night conversation. Probably not. It’s nowhere near late enough that the time could be used to justify the type of excessive honesty that only comes with exhaustion.

“I wish I was retired.”

“Huh?” Dex says.

“It just kind of sucks that we aren’t really ever going to be able to relax until retirement. As long as there’s stuff that has to get done, it hangs over me.”

“Yeah. Just being able to pull blankets over my head and not do anything would be great.”

“Well, then you literally have stuff hanging over you.”

“But it’s soft and fuzzy.”

“I’m sure the same can be said of the mold in the laundry room.”

“I didn’t need to know there was mold in the laundry room.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Can you imagine us at retirement age, though?”

“Do you mean  _ us _ us or whole team us?”

“Us us, I guess. I’m betting you’d be the first person to need someone to help you get up. And I’d probably be making proto-avante-garde sculptures out of my laundry.”

“You know, just what with the way the universe is going, we’d probably wind up moving in together to watch each other.”

“Nursey Patrol. It’s a way of life.”

“At least I just would have to be more careful about falling down, you’re the one who said you’d let your laundry pile up.”

“You do that too.”

“Trainwrecks Anonymous.”

“But we already know each other.”

“Elderly People Against Organization.”

“I like it.”

“Good, we’ll paint it on the mailbox.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to post this now because them talking about living together after retirement made my heart hurt so i had to share it  
> also, sorry this took longer than anticipated! i was absolutely exhausted for all of last week and it took me a little while longer than expected to get into the rhythm of writing regularly again. but i'm back!! :)  
> love y'all, thank you so much for reading and commenting and kudosing and everything else u lovely people do


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a slightly shorter chapter than usual but don't let that fool you lmao

Dex has a class notebook in front of him, open to a blank page.

_ I think, _ he writes on it, and then he stops. Does he?

Dex erases the  _ think _ and replaces it with  _ might. _

_ I might _

Okay is the word. He’s doing okay so far.

He adds  _ have. _

A pause. Dex looks at the paper.  _ I might have— _ what? Dex knows, and he’s trying to articulate it, sort of. Get everything figured out so he has at least a vague idea of what’s going on. The unexamined life, and all that. Dex has been doing an awful lot of examining lately.

The next words come out in a rush, a crossing out and starting over, when he scribbles down the words  _ I like Nursey _ and then he adds a period to make it final.

Dex breathes in, slowly. The world isn’t exploding. There hasn’t been some sort of new paradigm shift in the universe. The paper is right there, boldly stating what has not been stated before— at least, not by Dex. On paper, it looks like the simplest of truths.

Dex erases it anyway, because if he didn’t, someone would ask what that was doing in his class notes sooner or later.  _ Theorem: I like Nursey. Proof: ??? _

Well, he could try turning that in for extra credit, but that’s probably not the best idea. Dex himself has only just gotten used to it.

He’d been right, eventually, about last night qualifying for a late night conversation, because he and Nursey had debated retirement (and then types of pets, and then the optimal squishiness of sofa cushions, and so on and so forth) for hours. Dex had dozed off around midnight, or at least that’s the last time he checked the clock before falling asleep. He’d woken up, quietly grabbed his stuff for class and his phone, made a mental note to oil the hinges on the door to their room, and gone downstairs. The kitchen is deserted— the coffee pot is in the sink, and there’s cookie dough in the fridge (covered in plastic wrap and a sticky note saying DO NOT EAT ON PAIN OF NOT GETTING ANY ONCE THEY’RE BAKED), but there are no other signs of the team’s presence. (And the cookie dough is probably from last night, actually, since Bitty’s door was still closed when Dex passed by on his way to the stairs.)

He’d gotten out a notebook and a pencil without any real idea of what he was doing, because last night was (and is) still swirling around his head, and then Dex’s thought process had been approximately ‘fuck it, I’m not going to get anywhere until I get some things figured out.’

He’s made a reasonable amount of progress, considering it’s only been three and a half minutes since that decision.

The paper is blank again except for the eraser shavings, which Dex brushes off before sticking the notebook in his backpack. Somehow, the ‘Dex’ in glitter glue that Lardo had put on it last year still hasn’t come off, which is a testament to the glue. It remains as glittery and firmly attached as it was the day it was applied, roughly a week before they went on holiday break. Dex hadn’t had an opinion on it one way or another then (Lardo had just desperately wanted to write things in glitter glue), but he kinda likes it now.

Dex zips up his backpack, sets it on the floor next to his chair, and puts some bread in the toaster. That’s easier than the alternative, which is considering what he’s going to do about Nursey.

(And yet, of course, he finds himself debating that anyway.)

Telling him would be too much too soon. For all Dex knows, it’s one of those passing crushes on a good friend (like Chowder, although that particular stretch of time was when they were bona fide frogs) that last for maybe a week before vanishing. If that’s the case, he won’t know for a while, so there’s no point in doing anything about it yet.

Although he  _ could _ tell somebody, just not Nursey. If he says he’s not sure if it’s going to last or not, they won’t take it as an admission of undying love. That way, Dex can ramble about confusion and romantic inertia and  _ sharing a goddamn room _ and not feel ridiculous because he’s rambling about it internally all the time. 

But who?

It’s a simple question, really, with a simple answer, and as soon as Dex asks it he knows it has to be Chowder. Dex has never put much thought into deeming certain people ‘best friends’ but if he did, Chowder would be one of them— first of all, they’ve been close since frog year, which is more than Dex can say for many teammates, and second of all, Chowder is just that kind of person who it’s ridiculously easy to confide in.

Okay, now that’s settled, but there’s still the more difficult question: how is Dex going to go about this?

The toaster dings, so Dex forgets about that for now in favor of getting his breakfast organized. He’ll figure it out at some point.

 

He does, but it doesn’t go quite the way Dex had envisioned. Dex is running late to meet Chowder at the library, and he texts Chowder that he’s on his way as soon as he gets out of the Haus.

 

**Dex:** running a little late, be there in five, sorry

**Chowder:** dude three mins late is hardly late enough to count as late i’m not even there yet

**Chowder:** but out of curiosity, why? thought u had an alarm set?

**Dex:** i did

**Dex:** but nursey somehow got a pack of sticky notes stuck under the couch and needed help getting them

**Dex:** and personally i thought it could wait but apparently not

**Dex:** so

**Chowder:** how did they get under the couch tho

**Dex:** i do not know

**Dex:** all i know is that im weak

**Dex:** hes literally too attractive for me to refuse

**Chowder:** lol yeah

 

**Chowder:** HOLY FUCK FOXTROT BITTY WE MIGHT BE MAKING SOME PROGRESS

**Chowder:** highkey would not be nice of me to say more

**Chowder:** so ur just gonna have to suffer

**Chowder:** but!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Admittedly, it’s not what Dex had envisioned, but he may as well roll with it, seeing as he hadn’t actually made any more progress on deciding how he was going to talk to Chowder. He can’t exactly take anything back now.

 

**Chowder:** at least he didn’t get stuck under the couch himself tho

**Dex:** yeah well the whole point of me being there was so we could move the couch out of the way

**Dex:** ughhhh

**Dex:** chowder i lowkey have a crush on nursey

**Dex:** idk if its serious or itll just last like a week

**Dex:** wE SHARE A ROOM WHAT DO I DO

**Chowder:** i think you’ll live tbh

**Chowder:** feel free to vent but like the way i see it ur in a p good situation

**Chowder:** if it’s just passing, he’s not gonna question u being a little weird for a while, everyone has off weeks

**Chowder:** and if it’s not at least you have longer to figure out what to do!!

 

Chowder can’t really believe that he’s having this conversation. Dex being the first one to confess a crush is surprising enough, but the fact that he just casually dropped it into conversation over text without warning?  _ Unbelievable _ . And with the amount of time Chowder has been anticipating something like this, the fact that it’s really happening just doesn’t feel all that real. He’d guess that he fell asleep in the library and is having a really weird dream, except that Chowder’s dreams never make this much narrative sense.

He’s going to leave the ball in Dex’s court on this one.

 

**Chowder:** but srsly thanks for telling me and if u wanna talk i am right here!!!

**Dex:** ty chowder

**Dex:** i told u bc i knew ud be chill about it

 

**Chowder:** this is kILLING ME

**Bitty:** ??

**Chowder:** AOJWEGJ;OWIEFKLFKLLSIFIEFJEKDGSGUHGUEENJV

**Foxtrot:** damn

**Foxtrot:** hope they rlly are making progress i must have resolution to this question

**Chowder:** i feel like my brain is ascending out my ears

 

**Chowder:** lol chill

**Dex:** ?

**Dex:** oh

**Dex:** fuck

**Chowder:** :)

**Dex:** you see my problem

**Chowder:** :))))

**Chowder:** i’m so happy for u

**Dex:** why? nothings happened

**Chowder:** well nothing COULD have happened if u weren’t friends!! and you are!!!!!

**Chowder:** i’m just rlly happy bc frog year i wld never have believed this

**Chowder:** and even if after a week or two u don’t feel the same way it’s still great ur bond is so strong

**Chowder:** that sounded weird gah what are words

**Dex:** i knew what u meant. 

**Dex:** :)

 

**Bitty:** also hopefully progress is exponential

**Bitty:** we ARE getting close to graduation and who knows what the summer will be like

**Bitty:** im w foxtrot i want this resolved

**Chowder:** :) :) :) :) 

**Chowder:** also maybe we should add r &h to this

**Chowder:** since theyre probably gonna be here when everything happens

**Chowder:** i mean, if it does happen before grad

**Bitty:** on it

  
**Nursey:** hey wanna meet up?? i want to talk to u abt some stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who is nursey texting???? :O and why????  
> also, this is p close to being my longest fic, so there's that lmao  
> seriously!! i have feelings about this!! i am literally chowder, chowder is me!! wHAT DO I EVEN SAY WE'VE BEEN WORKING OUR WAY TO THIS POINT FOR SO LONG AND IT'S NOT EVEN THE END  
> anyway i have no words i'm just really hyped that we finally got to this chapter so!!! woohoo!!!!!  
> i love ALL OF YOU


	13. Chapter 13

**Nursey:** hey wanna meet up?? i want to talk to u abt some stuff

**Smriti:** Oh yeah sure

**Smriti:** Is this a writing thing or a personal thing

**Nursey:** personal

**Smriti:** K is meeting up for dinner tonight and heading to the quad after ok w u

**Nursey:** yeah ty

**Smriti:** Yw. Lmk when ur almost at the dining hall bc my dorm is in the same building

**Nursey:** will do

 

Nursey texts Smriti when he’s two minutes away, and she meets him, and they get their food without talking much and find a table by a window.

“So how are you?” Smriti asks once they’ve both had a few bites of their food.

Nursey chews slowly and swallows before he answers. “Confused, I guess.”

“So confused that you’re even confused about whether you’re confused or not?”

“Exactly.”

Smriti doesn’t say anything, just nods and waits for him to elaborate.

Nursey sighs. “It’s about Dex.”

“What about him?”

“I don’t know how to be around him.”

“How to be, as in how to behave, or how to be as in how to physically be near him?”

“I know how to physically be around him. I just... I feel like I’m overthinking every interaction with him, you know?”

“Do you want advice, sympathy, both, or neither?”

“Both.”

“Dude, that sucks.”

“Impressive.”

“Ha. No, I mean it, that has to suck because of how much time you spend together, and if you want to talk about it like you’re doing right now, you know who to call.”

“Ghostbusters,” they say in unison.

“And here’s my advice,” Smriti continues. “If you haven’t already, figure out why you’re overanalyzing things. And think about if there’s something you’re looking for when you overthink those interactions, because you’re probably hoping to find something, even if you don’t know what it is right now. Once you know what you’re looking for, then you can think about how to get it. But you have to know first. Otherwise it’ll just be frustrating. Think out loud, write it down, whatever you need to do to figure out what you’re doing. Then maybe things will fall into place.”

“I hope so. It’s kind of been bugging me for a while because I feel like we’re good enough friends that I shouldn’t be worrying about how he reacts to everything I say or do.”

“Well, if it helps, I think you are,” Smriti offers.

“Thanks.”

“So did you have any particular reason why you wanted to talk to me specifically?”

“I can’t talk to anyone on the team about it, and I guess it didn’t seem like you would try to figure it out for me.”

“Trust me, I have no intentions of trying to put my thoughts on the matter into your head.”

“That’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you about it.”

 

They end up not walking around the quad as planned, because the conversation has already shifted to other things long before they finish dinner (Smriti is almost done with the first draft of her novel, Nursey got a video of basically real life  _ Make Way for Ducklings, _ how long has the Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal dispenser been stuck). Smriti bids Nursey farewell and heads back to her dorm, and Nursey wanders around the lake on his own instead.

He’s not there for long. After a lap and a half, Nursey turns off the path around the lake to head back to the Haus. He pauses for a moment, just long enough to send Smriti a quick text. All it says is  _ ‘think i got it now.’ _

 

**Nursey:** c

**Nursey:** c

**Nursey:** c

**Chowder:** yeah

**Nursey:** im not gonna date kevin

**Chowder:** good to know!

**Chowder:** why are u telling me this now tho

**Nursey:** bc i just decided

**Chowder:** oh ok

**Nursey:** im not interested

**Nursey:** so

**Nursey:** not gonna date him

**Nursey:** and this is still totally hypothetical bc theres no reason for me to even assume HES interested but just so u know

**Chowder:** swawesome

**Chowder:** u on ur way back to the haus?

**Nursey:** yeah

**Chowder:** good bc nobody can find ollies lucky socks

**Nursey:** have u tried the pantry

**Chowder:** no?? it’s the pantry

**Chowder:** bitty wouldnt let a pair of game day socks get nEAR his supplies, no matter how many times theyve been washed

 

**Chowder:** update they were in the pantry

**Chowder:** HOW??!??!!?

**Nursey:** B)

**Nursey:** also im literally five steps away from the door if you had waited like ten seconds to send that u could have told me in person

**Chowder:** still!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Chowder:** oh hey how was dinner w smriti? hows her book going?

 

Nursey doesn’t respond via text, choosing instead to simply open the front door of the Haus and say “It was good, she’s almost done with the first draft.”

“That’s awesome,” Chowder says from the kitchen, where Nursey can hear a significant amount of the team talking about Ollie’s socks. “I guess that explains why she’s feeling relaxed enough about it to take a break.” He emerges with a cup of orange juice and a huge smile.

“You had a good day?”

“Yeah, it was pretty ‘swawesome. You?”

“Yeah.”

Dex wanders out of the kitchen, also with a cup of juice. “Oh, hey, Nursey, ‘sup?”

“Why do you have juice?” Last Nursey checked, Chowder has no opinion on the time of day that juice should be consumed, but Dex is pretty firmly in the ‘mornings only’ camp, and it’s almost seven PM.

“Oh, when we were looking in the fridge Whiskey noticed the orange juice was going to expire tomorrow so we’re finishing it tonight,” Chowder says.

“You looked in the fridge but not the pantry?”

“The fridge is a stereotypical place to accidentally forget your stuff, unlike the  _ pantry!” _

 

That night, the sky is clear. It’s a new moon, but the stars shine a vague, indistinct light through the curtains of their room anyway.

“Have I been kind of weird lately?”

“Not that I remember.” A beat. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Just checking.”

“Oh, okay. But, you know, if you’re feeling kind of off, you can talk to me about it. Or anyone on the team.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

 

**Ransom:** sup

**Ransom:** why am i here?

**Holster:** ^^

**Bitty:** omg so many reasons u dont even know

**Bitty:** so u know how ur coming for grad

**Ransom:** yeah

**Bitty:** WELL.

**Bitty:** u know how nursey and dex are annoyingly oblivious to the fact that they’re basically dating

**Holster:** Yeah

**Bitty:** according to chowder, who does not seem to be checking his phone rn, theyve been making progress

**Bitty:** which means, if its gonna happen before the year is over, ull probably be here when it does

**Bitty:** so we want to both warn u and bring you into our grand plan

**Ransom:** grand plan?

**Bitty:** ok so we don’t really have a plan beyond hinting somewhat more aggressively than usual and seeing if anything happens but that’s still a plan ok

**Bitty:** foxtrot is also in this gc idk where she is

**Bitty:** and now ur updated!

**Holster:** So is everyone on the team in on this?

**Bitty:** p much tbh

**Holster:** Good to know

**Ransom:** keep us up to date so we know what to expect when we arrive

**Bitty:** sure thing!

**Ransom:** and also it’s swawesome that they didn’t kill each other

**Bitty:** ikr

**Bitty:** i would attribute it to my captaincy but honestly i think its a combination of chowder, the sophomores, me, and being around each other 24/7

**Ransom:** still

 

“So remember how I was talking to you about Kevin?”

“And how you thought Chowder was trying to get you to date?” Dex doesn’t mention that later in that same conversation, Chowder had discussed his future half-joking plans to run a matchmaking agency. “Yeah, why?”

“I decided,” Nursey says. “I’m not going to date him.”

“Cool.” The  _ clink _ Dex’s coffee mug makes when he sets it in the sink seems unnaturally loud. “How did you decide?”

He feels, rather than sees, Nursey shrug at the kitchen table. “I thought about it, but I’m just not interested in him, so nothing good would have come of that. C didn’t really seem surprised, just said okay and asked me if I knew where Ollie’s socks were.”

“So that was how he decided to look in the pantry. He didn’t say at the time.”

“Ha. I’m not surprised. But yeah, I just figured it would be a waste, and I wouldn’t want to ask someone out just to dump them a few weeks later.”

“Yeah, no.”

“So that’s that, then.”

“Yup.”

“Dodged a bullet there.”

“Sounds like it.”

Dex rinses out his coffee mug to get at the sugar that hadn’t completely dissolved and is sitting at the bottom in a wet lump.

Nursey pushes his chair back and, a few seconds later, comes up to the sink with his own dishes.

“This conversation is awkward as fuck and I don’t know what to do about it or why it’s like this,” Dex says after they stand next to each other silently for a few seconds. Four, to be precise, and he knows that’s how long it takes for a silence to be awkward because Chowder told him and then spent a bus ride on one of their roadies stopping in the middle of all his sentences to make the conversations as awkward as possible. It was funny.

“Same,” Nursey says. “I feel like we’ve said all about Kevin that needs to be said, let’s talk about something else.”

“Sounds good.”

They keep standing there. Dex looks out the window. Tango is doing homework on the lawn with some of the tadpoles, there’s a couple girls Dex distantly remembers being on the volleyball team biking past, the few clouds in the sky are fluffy and white.

Dex counts in his head,  _ one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one— _ “I’m glad you’re not gonna date him.”

Well, fuck. At least they didn’t make it to four seconds that time.

Nursey just says, “Me too.”

“I mean, it’s just...”  _ Why am I doing this what is happening.  _ “It would be a waste of time,” Dex says. “And breaking up isn’t really fun either, so. You know.”

There’s a tiny  _ whoosh _ of air next to him, like the tiniest sigh ever breathed. Dex continues looking out the window. “Yeah. I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boys. Why can't you talk about your feelings.  
> also, yes, the person nursey was texting was smriti!! (although i did get a comment suggesting it was kevin. forgot ur username, whoever you are, but that basically made my day and it would have been a brilliant plot twist so i'm a tiny bit irritated i didn't think of it first lol)  
> as always, thank you for reading, kudosing, and commenting! we're getting close to graduation!!!!


	14. Chapter 14

**Dex:** chowderrrrrrr

**Chowder:** ?

 

On second thought, maybe Dex  _ doesn’t _ want to ramble to Chowder about standing in the kitchen talking around anything important. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but really, how does he put that into words?

 

**Dex:** i’m glad we’re friends

**Chowder:** me too!

**Chowder:** hey, ransom and holster are getting here tmrw, they want to know if they need to rent a car

**Dex:** that’s awfully last minute of them

**Dex:** but nah i can pick them up

**Chowder:** swawesome! i’ll tell them bc i’m already talking to ransom

**Chowder:** they say cool and their flight should land at 230

**Chowder:** pm

**Dex:** that’s a civilized time

**Chowder:** lol it’s ur problem for volunteering to pick people up from the airport before checking what time their flight gets in

**Dex:** i mean true but still

 

**Ransom:** hey dude thanks for picking us up

**Dex:** it’s chill dw about it

**Ransom:** ???

**Ransom:** is this nursey

**Dex:** nope it’s me

**Dex:** idk man it just slipped out

 

Dex conveniently doesn’t add that it’s slipped out more than once.

 

**Ransom:** oh yeah i get that

**Ransom:** once someone assumed holster had taken my phone and i love him but dude texts like a fucking dad

**Ransom:** not even a cool dad

**Ransom:** but it’s whatever, it’s hard NOT to start sounding like each other tbh

**Ransom:** anyway i should pack but see u tomorrow

**Dex:** bye

 

“Hey, Nursey,” he says that afternoon. They’re in the library, but the librarians have always been more agreeable about short conversations with the hockey team than they are with anyone else. Dex figures it’s probably because for them, short conversations are an improvement.

“Yeah?” Nursey caps his highlighter and looks up.

“I’m picking up Ransom and Holster from the airport tomorrow, want to come?”

“Depends, how early are you going to wake me up?”

“It lands in the afternoon. So, I won’t.”

“Sure.”

“Cool.”

“Hopefully the heating won’t break this time.”

“That was one time, shut up.”

Nursey just  _ pft _ s at him with a smile and goes back to his anthology, which Dex is pretty sure he’s reading for fun at this point.

 

**Dex:** nursey’s gonna come along, provided he’s awake

**Chowder:** ok

**Chowder:** why?

**Dex:** let’s not pretend either of us knows why i decided to ask if he wanted to come

**Chowder:** u got it baaaaad

 

Dex doesn’t bother replying to that. They both know it’s true.

“I’m done with what I wanted to review, so we can leave whenever,” he tells Nursey.

“Almost done with this chapter.”

Dex packs up his laptop and his textbook and then stares at his phone before texting Bitty.

 

**Dex:** do u think ur going to be up before ten tomorrow?

 

It’s not very long before Bitty replies, which is somewhat odd considering his professed commitment to studying for his last exams today and tomorrow so he can spend more time with Jack tomorrow before (hopefully) the last game of the finals. Even if Bitty wasn’t studying, Dex would at least expect him to be baking.

 

**Bitty:** almost definitely, but i can make 100% sure i am if something’s up?

**Dex:** not really, just want to get your thoughts on something as soon as possible

**Bitty:** sounds good

**Bitty:** i’ll endeavor not to make tiramisu at four in the morning and then crash until eleven

**Dex:** lmao yeah that sounds like a good idea

**Dex:** and thanks

**Bitty:** yw

**Bitty:** oh god

**Dex:** ?

**Bitty:** this may be the last of my captainly duties

**Bitty:** AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

**Dex:** consider this: if you don’t think about the graduation angst, it goes away

**Bitty:** MY GRADUATION ROBES ARE THREE FEET AWAY FROM ME DEX

**Dex:** ?? put them in the closet?

**Bitty:** why? i’m gonna need them soon

**Dex:** yeah, in like a WEEK

**Bitty:** still too soon

**Dex:** when you can’t find ur robes bc they got buried under ur stuff i will remember this conversation and laugh

**Bitty:** shut up

 

Dex wakes up the next morning around nine, later than usual, but Nursey still isn’t awake, so Dex counts his timing a success. He gets dressed and heads downstairs with as little noise as possible, then debates his beverage options before grabbing a teabag of English Breakfast and turning on the kettle.

The past week has only been interesting in that he’s studied his ass off and that his crush on Nursey doesn’t seem to be fading. Finals seem almost less pressing— Dex knows his class material far better than he knows if he can even do anything about Nursey and the emotions that come with him before the summer starts. He’s been watching himself, less to monitor his behavior than to observe what happens when he talks to Nursey. Dex doesn’t know what he’s looking for, exactly, but he was expecting something more dramatic. Nothing distinct has really  _ happened, _ but there he is, thinking things like ‘wow, it would be really great to spend every day with him.’ A stark contrast from when they’d moved into their room in the Haus together. (Although Nursey wasn’t as much of a nightmare roommate as he  _ could _ be, all things considered. At least they could leave each other alone, and their stuff stayed relatively separate. Except in the closet, somehow.)

Dex has been occasionally updating Chowder, although the updates mostly amount to ‘nothing has changed.’ Chowder has taken to replying with things like ‘you know, i dont know how long ur passing crushes last but this does seem to be getting a little long.’ And it is getting long, and has been since Thursday, when Dex first thought,  _ huh, maybe this isn’t going away. _ And yesterday he’d thought the same thing, and that’s when he’d decided to text Bitty, because Dex isn’t sure if he needs advice or just a brownie and someone to listen to him ramble, and Bitty is sure to provide both, as well as a certain outside perspective since he hasn’t been getting updated the entire week.

Bitty comes in barely before the kettle boils and automatically turns itself off (it’s fancy that way). He glances at the kettle before dumping some coffee in a filter and starting up the coffee pot, grabbing a Tupperware on his way back to the table. It has a piece of tape on the lid with ‘chocolate chip cookies’ written on it in Sharpie— the remainder of the cookie dough that had survived its night in the fridge, various hockey players ‘helping’ Bitty get it in the oven, and the feeding frenzy afterwards. Probably the only reason any of them have made it through the week is because Bitty’s been stress baking, so the Haus has been inundated with baked goods. Hurray for finals. Both sarcastically and sincerely.

“So what did you want to talk to me about?” Bitty asks once Dex has finished getting his tea organized. Bitty looks surprisingly well-rested.

“Uh, okay, so.” Dex takes a bite of his cookie, chews, and swallows, at the same time that Bitty gets a mug out for his coffee and returns to the table. “You know how Nursey and I are really good friends?”

Bitty takes a cookie for himself and nods.

“So. I, uh. Might kinda want to date him instead?”

 

**Chowder:** nursey u awake?

**Nursey:** shhhh

**Nursey:** no

**Nursey:** why?

**Chowder:** i mean u should probably get up soon if u want to be both fully awake and ready to go when u have to leave for the airport

**Nursey:** oh yeah true

**Nursey:** hey chowder?

**Chowder:** yeah?

 

“Okay,” Bitty says.

“And,” Dex says, “I am not sure how to do that. Or if I should even do it.”

The coffee pot beeps, but Bitty doesn’t get up yet. “Well, what’s your main reason for not doing it?”

“That he’ll say no.”

“Okay. Do you want help figuring out what to do or do you just want cookies? Or both?”

“Both.”

“Well, you have the cookie already, so it would be weird if you didn’t want one after all. Anyway. I have a piece of advice.”

 

**Nursey:** so im trying to decide if i should ask someone out before the school year ends or after the summer?

**Nursey:** i need advice

**Chowder:** well what’s stopping you from doing it before the summer?

**Nursey:** idk procrastination i guess

**Nursey:** im not sure HOW to do it

**Nursey:** so if i wait until next yr ill have more time to figure it out

**Chowder:** true

**Chowder:** then just do it as soon as you figure out how you want to do it!!

**Nursey:** yeah that does seem like the logical choice

**Chowder:** yeah lmao

 

“You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take,” Bitty says, and he finishes his cookie and gets up to get his coffee. “Jack told me that. Apparently it’s something his dad says that Wayne Gretsky once said, or something like that? But if you don’t do it, you’ll never know, is my point. He might say no, but he might say yes, and you’re not really going to be able to be sure if you don’t try it.”

“Okay,” Dex says, and it doesn’t make him want to run out of the kitchen and ask Nursey out right that second (he’s nowhere near awake enough for that, so probably neither is Nursey, and he  _ does _ have that ride to the airport to think about), but it does help. “Okay. Thanks, Bitty. I think I’m gonna do it. Not today, but definitely at some point.”

“Okay,” Bitty says, and if he’s smiling behind his coffee mug Dex can’t tell. “You’re welcome.”

 

**Nursey:** ok well i guess i’ll figure that out eventually

**Nursey:** ty chowder

**Nursey:** guess i was just too wrapped up in it to see the obvious solution

**Chowder:** lol np

 

**Chowder:** HOLY FUCK

**Foxtrot:** ??

**Chowder:** things are definitely going to happen before grad

**Bitty:** tell me about it

**Foxtrot:** i feel so out of the loop lmao

**Bitty:** i do not think that will last long tbh

**Chowder:** ^^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hooooooooooooo boy we r almost done!!!!!!!!!!  
> we will be wrapping this up VERY soon so if you have any last feelings to get out before it's over you may wanna do that as soon as possible because i'm [tentatively] planning the next chapter to be the last? it depends how it goes while i write it ofc, and i'll update yall on tumblr if i decide it's not going to be the last one, but for now let's say that it will be. hence i've finally changed the '?' to a '15', lol. (i hope we end on 15 chapters because it's a nice multiple of 5)  
> as always, i love ALL OF YOU SO MUCH for reading and kudosing and commenting!  
> also, i'm not sure if this will wind up my longest work, but it's definitely very close so we may very well get there with the next chapter.  
> -mel


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a short chapter because i was originally going to have this and the next chapter combined but it clocked out at double the usual chapter length and this was the best place to split it. so, this one is a little bit short, next one will be a little bit long.

Nursey wanders out of their room ten minutes before they have to leave, fully dressed except for his left foot, which is missing a shoe. He stands in the kitchen doorway only long enough to say, “Dude, do you know where my—”

“You left it by the couch,” Dex says. He’s on his sixth cup of tea, but he switched to herbal about four cups ago. One of his final projects is open on his laptop, and he’s been half tweaking it before it’s due on Wednesday, half drinking his tea and staring blankly at the screen while various team members drift in and out of the kitchen.

“‘Swawesome.” Nursey vanishes from the doorway and Dex can hear alternating loud and soft footsteps heading in the direction of the couch.

He chugs the remainder of his peach tea and washes it out in the sink before heading upstairs to plug his laptop back in. There’s not much more he can do before it’s due, and the time would probably be better spent on other things. Dex can probably just do a perfunctory check on Wednesday right before turning it in and it’ll be fine.

“Here you go,” Bitty says when he gets back downstairs, shoving a tupperware of cookies into his hands. “Those are for Ransom and Holster, do  _ not _ eat any unless you ask them first.”

“Aw, Bitty,” Nursey says from behind Dex, who struggles not to jump out of his skin, because Nursey is both  _ right there _ and somehow managed to get there silently. (Fortunately, he doesn’t even lose his grip on the cookies.) “I didn’t even have any this morning.”

“There’s more in the kitchen, take some before you leave, but  _ don’t  _ take any from this box,” Bitty says, jabbing a finger at the tupperware.

“That’s fair.”

 

They wind up leaving a few minutes earlier than planned, which is good because the flight is apparently landing on time, and they only sit in the cell phone lot for a couple minutes before Nursey’s phone buzzes.

“It’s Ransom,” he says. “‘Landed, headed to baggage claim now, we’ll tell you which gate we’re closest to once we figure out which baggage claim we’re at. H’ — well, Holster, I guess— ‘is flipping out re: doggie pajamas he found in the in flight catalogue.’”

“They don’t even have a dog,” Dex says.

“I doubt that matters to Holster.”

“You’re probably right.” Dex buckles up his seatbelt in preparation for the drive to the terminal, but they still don’t know which one they’re going to, so he can’t really do much more than that. 

Dex turns in his seat (as best as he can, given the seatbelt) and looks at Nursey, who’s looking at his phone, waiting for a new message from Ransom. “Do you ever wonder how they figured everything out?”

Nursey looks up and over at him, and Dex finds himself practically incapable of breaking eye contact as Nursey says, “All the time.”

Dex says, “Me too.” And then he says, “I wonder what made them do something about it.”

Nursey blinks once, twice, still without looking away, and then he shrugs, a tiny motion that Dex only catches in his peripheral vision. “Maybe there was no reason not to.”

“There’s always a reason not to,” Dex contradicts. “Maybe the reasons just weren’t worth it anymore.”

“Semantics.”

“I can’t believe  _ you’re _ telling  _ me _ that.” It comes out hushed, almost a whisper.

“Me too,” he says, and the words float on a puff of breath and hang in the air. They could almost be echoing back to them, to Nursey and Dex—  _ me too, me too, me too, me too. _

Neither of them looks away. Did Dex think it was hard to break eye contact before? Now it’s fucking impossible. Dex couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. That phrase Nursey told him once comes back to mind— ‘stuck in eyes.’ That’s what this is. Dex is stuck, not getting out, and frankly not even trying. He feels like this moment has been inevitable for so long.

Maybe it has been.

“I want to kiss you,” Dex whispers.

Nursey’s words are just as hushed. “I do too.”

And later, Dex won’t remember who leaned in first, because they’re as synchronized now as they’ve ever been on the ice, as they ever  _ could _ be.

It’s hardly more than a brush of lips, but Dex feels like he’s just played a full game and double overtime, what with how fast his heart is beating. They’re sitting in a cell phone lot in Dex’s truck with the faulty heating and nowhere near enough legroom and they’re just here waiting and Dex could happily be here forever.

Their hands tangle together over the center console and it feels  _ right, _ like the universe has fallen into place around them, and Dex smiles, and Nursey smiles back.

Then Nursey’s phone rings.

He gives a miniscule sigh, then picks it up, keeping his left hand entwined with Dex’s. The phone is actually ringing, instead of just giving the texting notification, so Nursey accepts and puts it on speaker. “Did you figure out where we should pick you up?”

“Yeah, bro, I texted you like five times to go to A,” Ransom’s voice says.

“Oh. Weird, my phone didn’t buzz.”

“That or you didn’t notice it buzzing,” Dex chimes in.

“That’s possible,” Nursey says, lips curling up at the corners. Dex would really like to kiss him again, but Ransom is still on the phone.

“Well, now you know,” Ransom says. “We’ve got all our stuff, so we’ll just wait outside where we can see you better. See you in a bit.” Then he hangs up.

Nursey stares at the dark screen for a moment before hitting the home button and watching as five text notifications from Ransom light up the screen. “Whoops.”

“Pft. I can’t believe you didn’t notice.”

“ _ I _ can’t believe you kept your seatbelt on, that must have been uncomfortable as fuck. Besides, I was preoccupied,” Nursey says lightly. “Let’s go get them.”

They only let go of each other’s hands when Dex actually starts the car.

It’s a short drive to Terminal A, and Dex can see Ransom and Holster long before the truck is close enough to the curb that they can actually get in. Which brings something else to mind. “Wait, what do we say?”

Nursey’s eyes widen as he follows Dex’s gaze. “Uh, how about we don’t say anything until we get back to the Haus, and then we deposit them in the living room and get out of there until we can figure out what we  _ are _ going to say?”

“That sounds like a  _ great _ plan, let’s do it.” With that, Dex gets as close to the curb as possible, and Nursey gets out to get Ransom and Holster’s attention and help them get their stuff in the back. The legroom in the truck is minimal, especially for anyone over six feet, but Ransom and Holster have coped with the rear seat before and they’ll do it again. (Besides, Dex isn’t sure he can physically fit into a seat that’s moved any further forward than it already is, and he doubts Nursey can either.)

Dex hears, rather than sees, their approach. Or rather, he hears Holster, who is still ecstatic over the pajamas for dogs. Right now, he’s listing off names of friends who have dogs who might need or want some pajamas. Dex gets out of his seat to help them secure everything in the cargo bed and say hello face-to-face before they spend the rest of the drive to Samwell all facing the same direction. He grabs Bitty’s tupperware of cookies too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY FUCK SHIT THEY KISSED!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!!! Y'ALL I LITERALLY CAN'T BELIEVE HOW LONG I'VE BEEN BUILDING THIS UP AND IT JUST. HAPPENED. OMG.  
> there will be one more regular chapter (coming soon!!) and then the epilogue and then we're DONE!!  
> so now the info thing says 15/17 chapters, or at least it should. but yes this will wind up having 17 chapters, counting the epilogue  
> oh my god i can't believe we're almost DONE  
> love you!!!! -mel


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the longer one!

The drive back is made longer by rush hour traffic, but Dex is hardly keeping track of the time. He mostly drives instead of talking, just listening to the radio and the conversation flowing. Ransom and Holster get regular updates on life in the Haus, but they ask for details in-person, at a rate which leaves Dex exhausted just listening. Nursey keeps up with ease, though, and the combination of conversation, music, and trickles of leftover giddiness that show themselves from time to time, the drive is one of the best Dex has ever made, even if Ransom and Holster  _ do _ keep all of the cookies to themselves. He’s almost sorry when it’s over, but then his legs remind him why he doesn’t make a lot of long drives in the truck. Just standing up is a relief.

“You guys go in, we’ve got your bags,” Nursey says while Dex is still thinking about his legs.

“Are you sure?” Holster asks. “Because you don’t have to—”

“Nah, it’s fine, we’ve got it,” Dex says. “Wait, take the tupperware in so we don’t forget.”

“‘Swawesome, thanks.” He and Ransom head up to the door, which is opened by Bitty (who probably saw them arrive from the kitchen window) before they even get there.

Dex and Nursey start getting the suitcases from the cargo bed, very slowly. There are only two, but they’re disproportionately large considering that Ransom and Holster are only going to be here until graduation.

“What do they even have in here?” Dex asks as he lowers his end of the first suitcase to the ground. Ransom and Holster didn’t  _ say _ there was anything fragile in here, but being extra-cautious means they have to retrieve the suitcases much more slowly, so carefully taking out one at a time means they can maximize how long they have to talk before someone wonders why they haven’t come in yet.

Nursey shrugs. “Beats me. So what do you want to say when we get in?”

“I don’t know, I don’t want to overshadow their arrival yet. But we don’t have to say anything as soon as we enter the room, obviously. We can just wait until the time is right or something like that.”

“Yeah, of course.” Nursey sets the wheels of the second suitcase on the ground. “But when we do say something, what should we say?”

“Well, I’d like to say we’re dating, but we haven’t actually discussed that yet, so—”

“Wanna date me?”

“You fucker, I was going to ask you! But yes.”

Nursey grins. “‘Swawesome.”

“I would have bet you would say chill.”

“Trust me, I am  _ so _ not chill right now.”

“Me too.”

The door to the Haus opens again and Foxtrot leans out. “You good? You’re taking forever.”

“Yeah,” Dex replies. “We’re great.”

They each take a suitcase and head into the Haus. Ollie and Wicks had offered to share the attic, but Ransom and Holster had refused on the grounds that there was an air mattress in the storage closet that they could set up in the living room, so the suitcases don’t need to go up the stairs, which is great. It’s not even that they’re particularly heavy— they’re just  _ big. _ Dex does not understand.

“Do you have a stand mixer in here or something?” he asks when he sticks it in the corner of the living room, where the rest of the team, past and present, has congregrated. (Even the frogs, who weren’t around at the same time as Ransom and Holster, are here.)

“No, dude, hockey gear,” Ransom says, like it should be obvious. “Don’t think we’re not doing a scrimmage just because it’s graduation week.”

“‘Swawesome,” Tango says.

 

Dex and Nursey and Chowder and Bitty and Ransom and Holster go to dinner at Jerry’s, for old time’s sake. Someone, probably Chowder, because nobody else would have thought to do it what with their respective preoccupations, had called ahead, so the wait is pretty much nonexistent, and when they get to their table Dex knows it must have been Chowder because Chowder almost always requests the corner booth. 

“So how have things been going with Jack?” Holster asks almost the second they sit down. “I’m still mad you didn’t tell us you met an NHL player until after you were already dating him, by the way.”

“They’re going great!” Bitty says with a smile blooming on his face. “I’m spending some time in Providence this summer, and I’ll be mostly looking for jobs around here, but it’s a short enough trip that we should at least be able to do weekends once a month or so, and of course I’ll try to go to as many games as I can. I think it’ll be easier once I find a job. There are a couple things I’m looking at but none of them are for sure yet. If none of them work out I may see if there’s anything in Providence, though.”

“Nice,” Ransom says as the server drops by to get their drink orders. Once she’s gone, he continues, “So, anybody else have any huge news? Did a Schooner drop by during morning practice and now somebody’s dating him and the Haus will forever be divided?”

“Two teams, both alike in dignity, in fair Samwell, where we lay our scene,” Holster says mournfully.

Everyone laughs, but Dex and Nursey glance at each other and make eye contact, and then Dex says, “Actually, yes about news, no to the Schooner.”

“Pity,” Holster says. “Go on, though?”

“Uh.” Suddenly, Dex wishes he’d waited for Nursey to start talking. “Well.” He steps on Nursey’s foot under the table (lightly) in the hopes that he might come to the rescue.

Which he does not. “Um... we’re... Dex, go for it!”

Chowder leans forward on the other side of the booth and plops his elbows on the table. “Take your time, guys. Don’t, like, choke on your own tongue or something.”

Dex can feel his face getting red, and he’s almost unintentionally started counting,  _ one one-thousand, two one— fuck it. _ “Actuallyumwe’redating.”

“Wait, what?” Ransom asks as Chowder makes some sort of noise that could be considered a squeak, Bitty grins, and Holster almost does a spit take, which is impressive considering their drinks aren’t here yet.

“Oh my  _ god!” _ Chowder says. “Oh my god, I was right!”

“Can I text Foxtrot?” Bitty asks.

“When did this happen?” Holster says.

“Guys, I totally wasn’t kidding about the matchmaking stuff, look at this—”

“I’m with Holtzy, how long have you been dating?”

“It was the Gretsky advice, right? Please tell me it was the Gretsky advice.”

Fortunately, the staff of Jerry’s is incredibly used to groups of college students, so none of them even raise an eyebrow at the racket coming from their table.

“Okay, we need deets,” Chowder finally says. “I just can’t cope like this. And we need to know if we can text Foxtrot.”

“Fine with me,” Dex says, and Nursey says, “Sure.”

Bitty whips his phone out and composes a message in seconds, then leaves the phone on the table to await Foxtrot’s reply, which comes in barely the amount of time it took Bitty to send the message in the first place.

“What does it say?” Holster asks when Bitty’s phone buzzes.

“It says ‘holy fuck’ in all caps.”

“Sounds reasonable to me.”

The server comes by and deposits their drinks, and Chowder takes a sip of his Coke and says, “Deets.”

“Like what?” Nursey asks.

“Like when did this happen?” Ransom asks.

“In the cell phone lot before we picked you up,” Dex says.

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“So when Nursey said his phone hadn’t buzzed?”

“It did.”

“Oh my god,” he murmurs. “Is it safe to go to into that truck?”

“Pft. Safer than it is to go into your apartment,” Nursey says. His hand finds Dex’s under the table as Bitty snorts inelegantly.

About halfway through dinner, they finish rehashing everything (several times over, actually, from the perspective of most of the people at the table), and the conversation turns to Bitty and graduation, but as they’re leaving Chowder says, “So do you want to tell the rest of the team? And if you do, when? Because most of them are probably at the Haus, so if you want to do it now, you can just do it as soon as we get back.”

Dex stops and looks at Nursey, who was about to slide out of the booth and looks equally unenthused.

“Uh, not tonight,” Nursey says. “We’ll figure out when we want to tell them.”

“Okay,” Chowder says, and then they’re on their way.

 

Later that night, Dex spits toothpaste into the sink and says, “Maybe we should say something tomorrow?”

“Team breakfast?” Nursey says. He’s in their room, but the door is open, so Dex can see him sitting at his desk (properly, for once) and writing. It’s not the same notebook that he takes with him— Dex has only ever seen the red one that Nursey is writing in now lying either closed or face down on his desk. He’s pretty sure it’s a journal, but he’s never asked.

“That sounds good to me, but I have an idea.”

“Is it a good idea?”

“It’s a funny idea.”

“‘Swawesome, what is it?”

 

“I don’t know, dude,” one of the frogs says earnestly to Ollie. “I’ve never dated someone I’m really good friends with—” Nursey elbows Dex, who nods— “won’t it mess something up?”

“Well,” Dex says, “when me and Nursey started dating, it didn’t really affect our friendship, so I think you’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, Dex— wait, what?”

“When me and Nursey started dating, it didn’t really affect our friendship,” Dex repeats patiently. Nursey hastily lifts his cup up to his face, and Dex doesn’t need to look to know he’s trying (and failing) not to smile. Down the table, he can see some of the team turning towards them.

“Uh, yeah, that’s what I thought you said the first time,” the frog says, just a tad bewildered.

“That is what I said the first time.”

“Yeah. Um, cool? Congratulations, um, how long have you been dating?”

Nursey checks his phone. “Almost twenty-one hours.”

“Twenty-one hours since what?” Tango asks, leaning forward so he can see Nursey and Dex (he’s about four people down from Nursey and up until tuning in a moment ago had been engaged in a lively conversation about something to do with camping gear).

“Since Dex and I started dating,” Nursey says.

Silence settles on the table for about half a second before everyone starts talking at once (including one other student passing by who rolls their eyes and says to their friend that it’s too early for this).

Whiskey laser-focuses on Chowder, who’s calmly eating his hashbrowns, and says, “You knew already.”

“Yup,” Chowder says. 

“I did too,” Foxtrot says, next to him. “Although they didn’t tell me in person, so I didn’t get to interrogate them.”

While they’re waiting for the hubbub to die down, Dex says to Nursey, “You know this means we’re just going to have to rehash everything we said last night.”

“Yeah, but now Chowder and Bitty get to help,” Nursey points out.

“Oh, true, yeah. Let’s make  _ them _ talk for a while.”

“Sounds great.”

It’s hard to eat with only his nondominant hand, but his other hand is holding Nursey’s under the table, so as far as Dex is concerned, it’s worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY FUCK I CAN'T BELIEVE WE ONLY HAVE THE EPILOGUE LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
> the epilogue is p short and i've already finished it so i'll probably post it tomorrow! :)  
> i'm saving my actual screaming about how i can't believe i finally finished this series for the notes on the epilogue but oh my GOD y'all  
> as always, thank you so much for reading, kudosing, and commenting!!!  
> love, mel


	17. Epilogue: Three Years Later

As is tradition, Samwell Men’s Hockey alums come for the graduations of everyone they played with. Dex and Nursey and Chowder and Foxtrot  _ should _ be the oldest alums coming this year, but it’s Shitty’s five-year reunion, and he’s bringing Lardo as his plus-one and suggested Ransom and Holster and Bitty come back as well for an impromptu team reunion, so all of a sudden there are going to be a  _ lot _ of hockey and ex-hockey players at graduation.

Dex and Nursey are somehow the last ones to arrive at the hotel they’re all staying at, maybe because most of them flew in earlier in the day. Dex and Nursey took the truck, which is a reincarnated version of the one Dex had while they were at Samwell. This one has more leg room, and a dog in the rear seat (the hotel is pet friendly, fortunately), and Nursey has a key to it, but somehow all those differences don’t feel that different, except the leg room. That’s a blessing. And Nursey having a key had felt different for approximately three seconds, but then it just felt normal.

They took turns driving, even though it wasn’t  _ that _ long of a drive, and Nursey takes charge of their dog as soon as they’ve parked, which leaves Dex with the suitcase. Almost as soon as the doors to the lobby open, Dex can hear the team— the lounge must be adjacent. Either that, or Bitty’s ability to project has grown massively in the past few years.

“I think we know where to find everyone else once we get everything in our room,” Nursey remarks as they approach the front desk.

Dex widens his eyes. “Wow, you really think so?”

“I  _ know _ so.”

“No fucking way.”

“I know, right?”

Check in is relatively painless— the concierge asks if they’re part of the hockey group, and when they say yes, she says that Nursey’s ‘Samwell Hockey’ t-shirt gave it away. Their room is on the same floor as everyone else’s, and it’s a matter of minutes to drop their suitcase and the dog bed (which will be useless, since she usually sleeps with them anyway) and head out to the lounge.

“Well, well,  _ well!” _ Shitty practically bellows when he sees Nursey and Dex. “If it isn’t the  _ fucking fiances!” _

“Jack and Bitty are engaged too,” Dex points out. They’ve left a loveseat free, clearly for the two of them, and he and Nursey and the dog sit down. (Well, he and Nursey sit down. She lies down across both of their laps.)

Shitty waves a hand dismissively. “They’ve been engaged since December. You, on the other hand...”

“I think what Shitty is trying to say is that last time he was at school with you, the concept of you even being friends was laughable, and he wasn’t here for the gradual descent into mutual pining,” Foxtrot says. Smriti, who has one arm around her and the other petting their own dog, nods with a grin.

“It was mutual pining for like a week,” Nursey says.

Foxtrot and Chowder share a look. “No, it wasn’t,” Chowder says.

“But seriously,” Lardo says, leaning forward out of her chair. “Deets.”

 

They have a lot to celebrate that weekend, starting with Dex and Nursey’s engagement and ending with the fact that they’re all there. Bitty’s charmed the kitchen staff into letting him use the facilities (one of them watches his vlog, which made it easy), the dogs have pretty much free rein in the courtyard, and they all troop over to Samwell together and sit in a row and every time a teammate crosses the stage they make enough noise to put everyone else to shame, and they have team breakfast in the lounge and manage to borrow Faber for a game and as he fistbumps Ransom after they successfully keep Jack away from their goal (although Nursey and Holster are doing a comparable job at the other end of the ice), Dex knows that things are just going to keep looking up.

Whiskey veers past Holster at the other end of the ice and scores, and as they get ready for another faceoff, Nursey says to Dex, “I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that I love you, and nothing is going to change that.”

Then Jack wins the faceoff and passes the puck to Nursey and Nursey slaps it straight past Dex into the goal.

“Ugh, fuck you,” Dex says as they reset, but he says it with a grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oHFAL;EFJW;OGJADSFK MY GOD IT'S FINALLY DONE???? WTF IS THIS EVEN REAL  
> Have some headcanons about their wedding by me and jxc (bittlebakes on tumblr):  
> their dog is the ringbearer. holster searches the internet from top to bottom to find someone who will make a custom dog tuxedo because OF COURSE HE DOES  
> they have a cat too but their cat just flops down in the front row of seats and doesn't do anything  
> and like all the speeches start with 'when i met dex and nursey they hATED THE FUCK OUT OF EACH OTHER I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED' (except perhaps not with that EXACT wording bc there will probably be some small people there)  
> chowder fucking gloats about how he was right  
> r&h do a speech together and they talk about carrying on the d-man tradition and everyone is crying even though every other sentence starts/ends with 'bro'  
> i still can't believe the airport au series is over! thank you so much to everyone who read along as plot bunnies spiraled wildly out of my control <3 <3 it definitely turned into something much bigger than i originally planned, since i thought it was just gonna be a quick ficlet that i posted on tumblr about a zimbits meet cute lmao  
> okay. wowowow i've spent seven months on this. still hasn't sunk in.  
> thank you so much for reading along and doing this with me!  
> love, mel <3

**Author's Note:**

> ok so updates on this will probably not be as frequent as they were on the other stories b/c first of all the chapters on this one are on the longer side and also i think it's gonna be a little more slow-moving just in general since i'm actually planning to have a longer work and not just doing a ficlet and then being like 'oh i'm gonna do another ficlet' and then doing that and then being like 'oh i'm gonna do another ficlet'  
> so updates will be less frequent. but hopefully they'll pretty consistently be around this length, that's what i'm planning but idk if the natural chapter breaks are going to agree with me about that  
> yay!!!!!!!!! we have begun!!!!!!


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